Chirinian v. Travelers Companies, Inc., The
- Laura Provinzino
- 0:24-cv-03956
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 30
Counsel of record per CourtListener. Firm names are approximate.
In Chirinian v. Travelers Companies, Judge Provinzino partially dismissed an ERISA class action challenging a tobacco surcharge, allowing one disclosure-related claim to proceed.
Employees enrolled in employer-sponsored health plans that impose tobacco surcharges through wellness programs, particularly those whose plan materials may omit required disclosures about personal physician accommodations. Employers and plan administrators who structure tobacco cessation wellness programs under ERISA should note that failing even minor regulatory disclosure requirements — such as informing participants of the right to involve their personal physician — may expose them to liability for the entire tobacco surcharge.
What happened
In Chirinian v. Travelers Companies, Inc., former employee Carlie Chirinian brought a proposed class action alleging that Travelers' employer-sponsored health plan illegally surcharged participants for tobacco use in violation of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). Chirinian argued the plan's tobacco cessation wellness program violated federal regulations in three ways: (1) its enrollment deadlines prevented participants from earning the full reward, (2) plan materials failed to disclose a legally compliant alternative standard, and (3) plan materials omitted a required statement that a participant's personal physician's recommendations would be accommodated. Travelers moved to dismiss, arguing Chirinian lacked standing, her claims were time-barred, and the complaint failed on the merits.
The court found that Chirinian had standing to seek retroactive monetary relief — because if Travelers' wellness program failed to meet all regulatory requirements, it was not authorized to impose the tobacco surcharge at all, and the payment of an unauthorized fee is a concrete injury. However, as a former plan participant, Chirinian lacked standing to seek prospective injunctive relief. On the statute of limitations, the court held that each individual surcharge charge constituted a separate act triggering the plan's one-year contractual limitations period, so claims arising from surcharges imposed after October 17, 2023 were not time-barred. On the merits, the court rejected Chirinian's first and second theories, finding that the plan's enrollment deadlines were consistent with federal regulations requiring only one opportunity per year to qualify for the wellness reward, and that the disclosure claim premised on those deadlines therefore also failed. The court dismissed the breach of fiduciary duty claim because Chirinian alleged only losses to individual participants, not to the plan itself, as required under ERISA Section 1132(a)(2) — and in fact the surcharges were deposited into the plan, increasing its assets.
Judge Provinzino granted the motion to dismiss in part and denied it in part. Count I (antidiscrimination violation based on enrollment deadlines and full reward) was dismissed without prejudice, as was Count II to the extent it was based on disclosure of a legally compliant alternative standard, and Count III (breach of fiduciary duty) was also dismissed without prejudice. What survives is the portion of Count II alleging that plan materials failed to include the required statement that a personal physician's recommendations would be accommodated — a deficiency Travelers conceded — and which the court found was not adequately challenged under Travelers' belatedly raised and insufficiently briefed argument that the underlying regulation is invalid after the Supreme Court's Loper Bright decision.
The detailed version
- Chirinian v. Travelers Companies, Inc., The · No. 0:24-cv-03956
- Laura M. Provinzino
- July 29, 2025
Background
Plaintiff Carlie Chirinian, a former employee of The Travelers Companies, Inc., filed a putative class action (a lawsuit brought on behalf of herself and other similarly situated employees) alleging that Travelers' employer-sponsored health plan (the "Plan") violated ERISA — the federal law governing employee benefit plans — by imposing a tobacco surcharge without a legally compliant wellness program.
ERISA generally prohibits health plans from charging participants different premiums based on health-status factors like tobacco use. However, plans may impose tobacco surcharges if they offer a compliant wellness program. Federal regulations require that such outcome-based wellness programs (programs requiring participants to achieve a health outcome, like being tobacco-free, to earn a reward): (1) offer participants at least one opportunity per year to qualify for the reward; (2) make the full reward available to all similarly situated individuals through a reasonable alternative standard; and (3) disclose in plan materials that a reasonable alternative standard exists, including contact information and a statement that a personal physician's recommendations will be accommodated.
Travelers' Plan surcharged tobacco users but allowed them to avoid the surcharge in two ways: (1) certifying during annual open enrollment that they had not used tobacco in the past six months and did not plan to use it, or (2) enrolling in a tobacco cessation program by March 31 of the plan year and completing it by December 15. Participants who completed the program by December 15 received a retroactive refund of all surcharges paid that year and had the surcharge prospectively waived. Chirinian was surcharged but did not allege she ever enrolled in or attempted to enroll in the cessation program.
Chirinian brought two counts: (Count I) violation of ERISA's antidiscrimination rules at 29 U.S.C. § 1182, and (Count II as referenced in the merits section) a derivative disclosure claim, with a separate breach of fiduciary duty claim (Count III) under ERISA Section 1132(a)(2). Travelers moved to dismiss on standing, limitations, and merits grounds.
Standing
Prospective Injunctive Relief
The court held that Chirinian, as a former plan participant no longer subject to the Plan, lacked standing to seek prospective (forward-looking) injunctive relief because she could not allege a real or immediate threat of future harm. The court rejected Chirinian's argument — based on the Eighth Circuit's Braden decision — that she could rely on injury to the Plan to satisfy her own Article III standing requirements. The court clarified that Braden requires a plaintiff to first independently establish her own Article III standing before she can seek relief on behalf of others.
Retroactive Monetary Relief
The court rejected Travelers' broader standing challenge. Travelers argued Chirinian was not injured because she never participated in the cessation program. The court disagreed, explaining that under ERISA regulations, Travelers was only authorized to impose the tobacco surcharge if its wellness program satisfied all regulatory requirements. If those requirements were not met, the surcharge was unauthorized regardless of whether Chirinian personally tried to use the cessation program. Paying an unauthorized fee constitutes a concrete injury sufficient for Article III standing, and that injury is traceable to Travelers' conduct and redressable by a refund.
Statute of Limitations
The Plan contained a contractual limitations period requiring lawsuits "related to the plan for any reason other than to claim a benefit" to be filed within one year of "the act or omission giving rise to the claim." The court enforced this clause as written.
However, the court agreed with Chirinian that each individual tobacco surcharge charge constituted a separate "act" under the limitations clause. Applying a continuing-violation theory — applicable where separate violations of the same type are repeated over time — the court held that each bimonthly surcharge payment was its own triggering event. Because Chirinian filed suit on October 17, 2024, she may challenge surcharges imposed from October 17, 2023 onward. Surcharges before that date are time-barred. The court noted that Chirinian paid surcharges until August 3, 2024, so her timely claims cover approximately ten months of surcharges.
Merits
Count I: Antidiscrimination Violation — Enrollment Deadlines (Dismissed Without Prejudice)
Chirinian argued that Travelers' March 31 enrollment deadline and December 15 completion deadline violated the requirement that all similarly situated individuals receive the "full reward" of the wellness program. The court rejected this theory.
The court harmonized the "full reward" requirement (29 C.F.R. § 2590.702(f)(4)(iv)) with the "frequency of opportunity" requirement (29 C.F.R. § 2590.702(f)(4)(i)), which requires only that participants have at least one opportunity per year to qualify for the reward. The Department of Labor's own FAQ guidance confirmed that if a participant has a reasonable opportunity to enroll at the beginning of the plan year, the plan need not provide additional opportunities during the year. The court found Travelers' plan did exactly this — and further provided a retroactive refund of the full year's surcharges to those who completed the program by December 15, distinguishing this case from others (like Macy's and Mehlberg) where no retroactive refund was provided. The court also rejected a new argument raised in Chirinian's opposition brief — that the retroactive refunds were taxable, unlike the pretax premium savings of non-smokers — because it was not alleged in the complaint and was in any event too speculative to support a claim.
Count II: Disclosure Claims
Derivative disclosure claim (dismissed without prejudice in part)
Chirinian's allegation that plan materials failed to disclose a legally compliant reasonable alternative standard was entirely dependent on her first theory. Because the court rejected the underlying claim that the alternative standard was non-compliant, this derivative claim also failed.
Physician accommodation disclosure claim (survives)
Chirinian separately alleged that plan materials failed to include the required statement that recommendations of a participant's personal physician would be accommodated, as required by 29 C.F.R. § 2590.702(f)(4)(v) and (vi). The court found that plan documents must at minimum make reference to a participant's personal physician, and the Plan's Summary Plan Description contained no such language when describing the tobacco cessation program. Travelers conceded this omission.
Travelers attempted to save itself by invoking the Supreme Court's 2024 Loper Bright decision (which limits the deference courts give to agency regulations), arguing the physician-accommodation regulation impermissibly rewrote the underlying statute. The court refused to address this argument for two independent reasons: (1) Travelers raised it for the first time in its reply brief, which forfeits the argument at this stage; and (2) Travelers' briefing was too thin — it made only a conclusory assertion without explaining why the specific regulation exceeded the Department of Labor's broad authority to implement ERISA. The court left the door open for Travelers to renew this argument with fuller briefing later in the case. With that argument set aside, the undisputed omission of physician-accommodation language means Chirinian plausibly alleged that Travelers failed to satisfy all regulatory requirements, and therefore was not authorized to impose the tobacco surcharge. This portion of Count II survives.
Count III: Breach of Fiduciary Duty (Dismissed Without Prejudice)
Chirinian alleged Travelers breached its ERISA fiduciary duties by administering a noncompliant plan, misusing plan assets, and failing to monitor the wellness program. She brought this claim under ERISA Section 1132(a)(2), which allows suits on behalf of the plan as a whole — not for individual injuries.
The court held that the claim fails because Chirinian did not plausibly allege a loss to the Plan. A Section 1132(a)(2) claim requires showing that the plan itself lost value. Here, Chirinian's own complaint alleged that the tobacco surcharges were collected and deposited into the Plan's trust, meaning the Plan's assets were actually increased by the alleged breach. The court found that increasing the plan's assets cannot constitute a loss to the plan. The court distinguished Mehlberg (where the employer allegedly kept the surcharges rather than depositing them) and respectfully disagreed with Bokma (which found individual participant losses sufficient). The court also noted that in Chirinian's ideal scenario — more participants avoiding the surcharge — the Plan would collect less money, confirming the losses were to individuals, not the plan. Even if Travelers would then owe higher contributions, the plan's balance sheet would be unchanged.
Disposition
- Count I: Dismissed without prejudice - Count II: Survives only as to the physician-accommodation disclosure theory; otherwise dismissed without prejudice - Count III: Dismissed without prejudice - Chirinian's motions for leave to file supplemental authority: Granted - Travelers' motion to dismiss: Granted in part, denied in part
Read the full 30-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.