Roe v. Arch Coal, Inc.

The court stayed proceedings after Arch Coal filed a notice advising the court that it had filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition in the bankruptcy court for the Eastern District of Missouri.

A representative participant in the employee pension plan of Arch Coal, Inc. (Arch) filed a class action complaint against the company alleging breaches of fiduciary duty pursuant to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The plaintiff asserted that the defendants retained Arch stock as investment options in the plans when a reasonable fiduciary would have done otherwise. The complaint alleged that defendants should have known that the pension plan’s investments in Arch stock were imprudent because of the “sea-change” in the coal industry. Causes of this “sea-change” cited in the complaint included the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.