Growing Concerns About Scrivener’s Errors in Benefit Plan Documents

No employee benefit plan is immune from mistakes. Those mistakes can take the form of errors embedded in plan documents. Thus, employers and administrators occasionally encounter difficult and costly problems when a mistake in a plan document promises an unintended benefit to plan participants.

Mistaken plan provisions are often referred to as "scrivener's errors." Such errors can occur when "extra" plan language is written into a document accidentally, or when necessary plan language is inadvertently omitted from the plan. In either case, the result can be a costly, unintended consequence which can be enforced under ERISA. That law, after all, requires the plan to be administered according to its terms.