Brian Boyle represents financial services companies, including banks, trust and mutual fund companies, health care payers, and health and life insurers, in connection with class or mass actions. Drawing on his detailed knowledge of the business models of financial services providers, and his significant experience working with experts in economics and finance, Brian explains complex financial services products and services in ways that courts and lay juries can understand.
Bringing creativity and sophistication to opposing class certification, Brian focuses his practice on high-stakes disputes under the ERISA statute. He represents the employer/sponsors of retirement plans, as well as product and service providers to such plans, when the plans’ fiduciary committees are alleged to have caused the plans to pay excessive fees, select poor-quality investments, or engage in “prohibited transactions.” On the welfare plan side, he also represents clients in actions for health benefits and in cases by health care providers who purport to have assignments of their patients’ litigation rights under ERISA.
Experience:
- Represented a mutual fund complex in litigation challenging the presence of proprietary investment options in a 401(k) plan
- Obtained dismissal of a class action against retirement services providers in nationwide ERISA class action fiduciary litigation challenging the reasonableness of fee structures in thousands of separate 401(k) plan service arrangements
- Represented a directed trustee and mutual fund investment adviser in multiple, separate ERISA actions seeking to impose fiduciary and non-fiduciary liability for allegedly excessive administrative and investment management fees, and allegedly substandard investment performance
- Obtained a dismissal of a nationwide provider class action challenging the administration of “pre-approval” requirements in health insurance policies
- Obtained a denial of class certification and summary judgment on a named plaintiffs’ claims in a nationwide ERISA class action challenging the method for coordinating private health plan secondary payments with Medicare benefits
- Investment and Retirement Plan Services:
- Represents a mutual fund complex in nationwide ERISA class action litigation challenging procedures for distributing “float” earnings on retirement plan contributions and redemptions
- Represents a life insurer and its affiliates in nationwide ERISA class action litigation challenging fees collected on insurance separate account investment options
- Represented a plan sponsor in ERISA fiduciary litigation raising claims of imprudence and prohibited transactions in connection with the selection of mutual fund investment options
- Health Plan Services:
- Represents a health insurer in a nationwide ERISA class action challenging the procedures used for recovery of claim overpayments
- Obtained, on appeal, a reversal of a trial court order certifying a class of 250 hospitals on claims that a managed care organization serving as a contractor to the military’s TRICARE management activity had underpaid claims for outpatient claims over a 10-year period
- Obtained a dismissal of a nationwide ERISA class action claims over the administration of out-of-network health insurance benefits
- Obtained a dismissal of a nationwide class action consumer fraud claims concerning an insurer’s marketing and administration of fixed indemnity health policies
- Obtained dismissal of multiple class actions challenging a health insurer’s assertion of subrogation and reimbursement rights against tort recoveries by plan beneficiaries
- Obtained a dismissal, on jurisdiction and exhaustion grounds, of nationwide class action litigation against a large Medicare Advantage contractor over an alleged misclassification of Medicare Part B and Part D drugs
- Consumer Financial Services:
- Obtained a dismissal of claims brought by municipalities against subprime mortgage lenders and servicers for the economic consequences of foreclosure
- Represented a large mortgage lender in a nationwide settlement of claims by state attorneys general over alleged consumer protection violations in the origination of subprime and pay-option mortgages
- Other Representations:
- Obtained partial denial of certification, and elimination of portion of class period, in securities class action litigation against a large government-sponsored enterprise over the withdrawal of the enterprise’s financial statements
- Obtained a denial of class certification on behalf of a series of property and casualty carriers in a purported RICO class action involving alleged pricing irregularities in commercial insurance policies
- Represented a property and casualty carrier in a purported nationwide class action involving alleged wrongful failure to pay policyholder dividends
- Obtained a denial of class certification and awards of summary judgment for an automobile manufacturer in a variety of consumer class actions raising purported claims of fraud surrounding the design and sale of sport-utility vehicles
Corporate & Government Experience:
- Former Assistant to the General Counsel
- Office of the Secretary of the Army (1986-1991)
- Former Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General
- US Department of Justice (2003-2005); recipient of the Edmund J. Randolph Award for Outstanding Justice Department Service (April 2005)
Admissions:
- District of Columbia, California
- US Supreme Court
- US Courts of Appeals, First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, Eleventh, and District of Columbia Circuits
- US District Court for the District of Columbia
Education:
- Harvard University, J.D., 1986: magna cum laude; editor, Harvard Law Review
- Georgetown University, A.B., 1982: summa cum laude
Clerkships:
- Honorable Antonin Scalia, US Supreme Court
- Honorable Laurence H. Silberman, US Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Member:
- American Bar Association
- American Health Lawyers Association
- American Law Institute
Cost
Rate : $$$