L3Harris Technologies Has ‘Repeatedly’ Violated COBRA Notice Rules, Class Action Claims

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The L3Harris Technologies, Inc. Employee Benefits Committee (L3) faces a proposed class action after allegedly choosing not to use a model COBRA form provided by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) when alerting terminated employees of their right to continued health insurance coverage. 

The 21-page complaint claims L3, in a presumable effort to save money by pushing ex-employees away from opting into continued healthcare coverage, sent COBRA forms that were not written in a manner intended to be understood by the average plan participant and presented essentially as a confusing hodge-podge of information. 

According to the lawsuit, terminated employees received in place of a single, properly written COBRA notice “multiple documents, mailed separately under different cover, containing bits and pieces of information on COBRA, both of which are still missing critical information.” The model notice made available by the DOL was designed specifically to avoid the issues caused by L3’s “confusing and piecemeal” COBRA process, the case says. The defendant’s inadequate COBRA notification process, the suit alleges, has threatened proposed class members’ ability to maintain health insurance coverage.

“The deficient COBRA notices at issue in this lawsuit both confused and misled Plaintiff,” the lawsuit, filed in Florida federal court, claims. “It also caused Plaintiff economic injuries in the form of lost health insurance and unpaid medical bills, as well as informational injuries.” 

The lawsuit alleges L3Harris Technologies, a defense contractor and IT services provider headquartered in Melbourne, Florida, has “repeatedly” violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) by sending upon a qualifying event COBRA notices that fall short of what the law requires.

“Rather than including all information required by law in a single notice, written in a manner calculated to be understood by the average plan participant, Defendant’s COBRA notification process instead offers only part of the legally required information in a haphazard and piece-meal fashion,” the complaint says.

The plaintiff, who worked for the defendant from October 2018 until his termination in December 2020, claims to have received a COBRA enrollment notice that failed to include an address indicating where his payments should be mailed. Moreover, the suit says the plaintiff’s COBRA notice “never actually explains how to enroll in COBRA” and did not include a physical election form. In place of these necessary pieces, the L3Harris COBRA form directed plan participants to a “catch-all” human resources phone number, operated by a “third-party guised as Defendant [sic] benefits department,” rather than actually explain how to opt for COBRA coverage, the lawsuit says. Similarly, the plaintiff’s notice had no information on how CORBA coverage could be lost prematurely, per the suit. 

“Without information on how to elect COBRA, or where to send payments, Defendant’s COBRA enrollment notice simply is not written in a manner calculated to be understood by the average plan participant,” the case alleges. 

Compounding matters, the lawsuit goes on, was that the plaintiff received from L3Harris a second COBRA letter, titled “Important Information About Your COBRA Continuation Coverage and Other Health Coverage Alternatives,” that was mailed under separate cover, adding to the ex-employee’s confusion. The second notice contained “some of the information missing from the COBRA enrollment notice,” but did not contain all of it, the suit claims.

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