Workers win at Supreme Court on 401(k) suit deadlines

Court rules in a lawsuit filed against Intel that companies can't assume employees read the emails they're sent with details about plan investments

The U.S. Supreme Court sided with workers on the deadlines for suing their retirement plans, saying a three-year clock for suits doesn’t start to run just because the plan sends emails offering details about how the money is invested.

The justices, voting unanimously in a case involving Intel Corp., said courts can’t assume workers read complicated materials that might provide reason to think their investments are being mishandled.

The case centered on a U.S. employee benefit law that gives workers three years to sue after they have “actual knowledge” of an alleged violation.

“To have ‘actual knowledge’ of a piece of information, one must in fact be aware of it,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court. The law also has a separate six-year deadline that bars suits even if the worker didn’t have knowledge.

Intel is fighting claims by ex-employee Christopher Sulyma that the company made overly risky investments, putting too much money in hedge funds and private equity. Intel said the lawsuit was filed after a three-year statute of limitations had expired.

Mr. Sulyma, who worked at Intel from 2010 to 2012, received emails more than three years before he sued pointing him to electronic documents that described the investments.

But he says he doesn’t recall reading those documents and didn’t learn about Intel’s hedge fund and private equity investments until they became the subject of news reports in 2015, the year he sued in federal court in California. His suit seeks class-action status.

Mr. Alito said employers defending suits can try to use other means, including electronic records, to show that particular workers actually saw investment disclosures.

Federal appeals courts have been divided on the issue. One said Mr. Sulyma’s suit could move forward, while another said in a different case that employees don’t get more time just because they failed to read documents that were available to them.

The case is Intel v. Sulyma, 18-1116.