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Beneficiary Disputes

Contested beneficiaries

My father died six months ago with a $500,000 group term life policy through his private employer of 19 years that still names his first wife, my mother, as sole primary beneficiary despite a 2014 divorce decree with a beneficiary-waiver provision, a 2016 remarriage to a woman who has now filed a claim on the policy, and a 2019 update to every other beneficiary designation he controlled (401(k), IRA, brokerage TOD, house deed) removing my mother and naming his second wife, with the life policy the only asset he apparently forgot to update because the employer's HR portal handled group life through a separate carrier system his union rep says he "never seemed to know existed"; the insurer, MetLife, has filed an interpleader in federal district court naming my mother, my father's widow, and my brother and me (adult children from the first marriage) as competing claimants, and now i am trying to understand whether Texas Family Code Section 9.301 (revocation-on-divorce) strips my mother's designation under state law, whether ERISA preempts the state statute under Egelhoff v. Egelhoff so the plan documents control and my mother collects the full $500,000, whether the divorce decree's beneficiary-waiver provision is enforceable as a contractual waiver separate from the state statute under Kennedy v. Plan Administrator, and whether a constructive-trust remedy in a post-payment state court action lets a court reallocate the proceeds after MetLife pays my mother under ERISA plan-documents rule. What are the numbered moves for a contested ERISA-governed group life beneficiary dispute after interpleader: the plan document and SPD request, the Egelhoff/Kennedy analysis on preemption and waiver, the divorce decree waiver language review, the constructive-trust theory, the interpleader intervention and cross-claim mechanics, the attorney fee availability under 29 USC 1132(g), and the practical question of whether to litigate to a federal district court judgment or settle in mediation among the family claimants before the court decides?

my father was 68, a project superintendent at a private mid-sized commercial general contractor in Houston for 19 years, and he died in january from a sudden cardiac event on a jobsite while walking a...

Posted by hopefulparent198•
6 comments

MetLife paid $500,000 death benefit to my dads ex-wife 8 years after their divorce because he never updated the beneficiary designation on the policy. what we learned fighting for reversal under Ohios revocation-on-divorce statute, the ERISA preemption trap, and the constructive trust remedy that got us to a settlement 14 months after death.

writing this up because we just settled the beneficiary dispute after 14 months of litigation and i wanted to share the specific legal framework and procedural moves that worked. this was an...

Posted by curious_buyer_981•
7 comments