Eleventh Circuit Holds that Administrative Exhaustion Is Not Required for ERISA Statutory Claims

On October 13, 2026, in Bolton v. Inland Fresh Seafood Corporation of America, Inc., No. 24-10084, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit overturned its longstanding practice of requiring benefit plan participants to exhaust administrative remedies before filing statutory claims under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). Administrative exhaustion requirements compel potential litigants to satisfy any plan-required internal appeals process with the plan sponsor or the plan administrator to resolve a dispute before a suit may be filed in court.  Therefore, as a result of this ruling, employees pursuing breach of fiduciary duty claims in the Eleventh Circuit will have one less obstacle to overcome before bringing suit regarding their employee benefit plans.  Importantly, this case does not disturb the requirement that a participant or beneficiary seeking plan benefits must still exhaust administrative remedies as it applies only to other claims under ERISA, such as breach of fiduciary duty or retaliation. 

Until the recent decision, the Eleventh Circuit followed the strict administrative exhaustion rule established in the 1985 ERISA case Mason v. Continental Group, Inc., 763 F.2d 1219 (11th Cir. 1985). The administrative exhaustion precedent set in Mason took a strict view of when federal benefits claims could properly be brought in court. Writing for the full court, Judge Adalberto Jordan called this practice “an atextual product of judicial creation based solely on policy reasons.” The court clarified that ERISA, despite its broad scope, “does not contain an exhaustion requirement for statutory claims,” and that courts “are not at liberty to add to or take from the language of [a] statute.” The court further pointed to the Mason decision’s own acknowledgment that ERISA does not require administrative exhaustion.

The court also noted that the Eleventh Circuit was in the minority of circuits requiring administrative exhaustion before bringing statutory claims under ERISA. Since the Mason decision, the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, Tenth, and D.C. Circuits have ruled against requiring administrative exhaustion of statutory ERISA claims. Furthermore, the Seventh Circuit has only required administrative exhaustion of statutory ERISA claims on a discretionary basis. The court found that the flaws in the Mason decision, its conflict with other circuits’ holdings, and nominal reliance interests all skewed in favor of overruling the exhaustion precedent. The court applied the holding retroactively.

Looking ahead, employers in the Eleventh Circuit—which has jurisdiction over Alabama, Florida, and Georgia—should anticipate increased exposure to ERISA litigation. As a proactive step, plan sponsors should review their plan and summary plan description (SPD) language, verifying that any exhaustion language that could be applicable to claims for benefits is mandatory rather than permissive.