Kennith McDowell v. Elbert Price

WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge.

This should have been a straightforward case. There was no dispute that the plaintiffs were entitled to benefits from the retirement plans administered by the defendant companies. There was no dispute that the defendants failed to provide the notice required under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq. The dispute in this case should have been over the amount of benefits and penalties owed to each plaintiff. Instead, the case remained on the district court 1 docket for four years, growing to almost six hundred docket…