Lefkowitz v. The Bank of New York as Preliminary Executor of Estate of Irene B. Marsh et al., 996 F.2d 600 (2d Cir. 1993)

Surrogate’s Court Litigation – Appellate Practice – Taxation – Spousal Consent – Challenge of Beneficiary Designation on Qualified Plan

Our lawyers often represent clients in dealing with beneficiary designations on pension and qualified plans. In one such case, Howell Bramson, Robert M. Redis and other lawyers at the firm successfully represented a surviving spouse’s estate and persuaded the lower court to invalidate a beneficiary designation on a qualified plan for the Decedent’s child (to the exclusion of the decedent’s spouse) on the grounds that the beneficiary designation violated the spousal consent rules under ERISA. The trial court’s determination was upheld, on appeal, by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeal also deal with significant legal questions, such as the applicability of ERISA to controlled foreign corporations and whether these sufficiently implicated the Interstate Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.