Southern Company Services, Inc., et al. v. William Drummond, et al.

This petition presents a question also raised in the petitions for a writ of certiorari, filed on September 14, 2026, in FedEx Corp., et al. v. Watt, et al., No. 26-360, and Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Pension Committee, et al. v. Reichert, et al., No. 26-387. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (ERISA), requires defined-benefit plans to offer a joint-and-survivor annuity option for married participants that is the “actuarial equivalent” of a single-life annuity provided to unmarried participants. 29 U.S.C. § 1055(d). That is, the plan participant must have the option of choosing a plan that pays out benefits for his or her retirement and also for the surviving spouse after the participant’s death. The question presented is whether the statute’s reference to “actuarial equivalence” requires that these two options simply be actuarially equivalent or whether it also demands that the underlying actuarial assumptions used in calculating equivalence be “reasonable,” even though Section 1055(d) does not mention any such constraint.