News Notes: “Mailbox Rule” Applies To Benefit Plan Claims

Karla Schikore, a Bank of America employee, resigned and requested a lump-sum payment of her retirement benefits. She swore that she’d mailed the bank a form electing to receive lump-sum benefits more than a year before, as required under the terms of the bank’s retirement plan. Unfortu-nately, the bank said it had never received the form and refused to disperse her benefits in a lump sum. Schikore sued. Now the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the plan abused its discretion in determining that Schikore’s form was not mailed on time. That’s because the “mailbox rule”—which the court said applies to retirement benefits claims—presumes that a document that was mailed has been received. However, under the rule, the intended recipient can still produce evidence to rebut the sender’s claim that the document was properly mailed.