Zaid Abdul-Aziz v. National Basketball Association Players' Pension Plan

Under ERISA, the National Basketball Association’s retirement plan has a statutory obligation to continuously recalculate retirement benefits during a player’s natural life upon the accrual of any “accrued benefit,” even for those retired players who elected to receive an actuarial equivalent instead of a life annuity. Thus, did the Second Circuit legally err in its application of ERISA – not only deviating from its own decision in Esden v. Bank of Boston, 229 F.3d 154 (2d Cir. 2000), but more importantly simultaneously creating a split in ERISA jurisprudence with its sister circuits as well – by holding the following in a summary opinion order involving retired professional basketball players of the National Basketball Association? That the statute of limitations on a player’s ERISA denial-of-benefits claim – specifically one involving an “accrued benefit” that might or might not arise subsequent to receiving an actuarial equivalent – automatically begins to accrue by the mere identification of the scheduled end date of the actuarial equivalent, as required by ERISA § 204(c)(3), and even though the “accrued benefit” at issue had not arisen before the scheduled end date of the actuarial equivalent, and thus had not yet legally accrued for purposes of New York’s breach of contract statute of limitations.