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Numbers alone rarely win a lawsuit — they need a foundation strong enough to hold weight. That foundation crumbled entirely for a group of Ameritas employees this week, as their faulty fee 401(k) suit against the life insurance giant met a decisive end. A Nebraska federal judge ruled that claims accusing the company of mismanaging its retirement plan simply didn't have enough substance to stand under federal benefits law.

The Ruling That Closed the Book

U.S. District Judge Susan M. Bazis granted a motion to dismiss filed by Ameritas Holding Co. and its co-defendants, and she didn't leave the door open a crack — the dismissal came with prejudice, permanently ending the Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit. The case, brought by Ameritas employees Amber Colston, Willis Bramwell and Roseann Blessing back in July 2023, was accompanied Tuesday by a judgment favoring Ameritas over the proposed class of 401(k) plan participants.

Fees Without a Yardstick

At the center of the dispute was a claim that mismanagement had drained millions from the plan through excessive fees. But Judge Bazis found the allegations were like an accusation without a witness — plausible-sounding, perhaps, but lacking the evidence needed to prove a breach of fiduciary duty under ERISA, whether framed as a failure of prudence or loyalty.

Missing the Benchmark

On the prudence claims specifically, the judge said the workers' complaint never gave the court a proper comparison point — no meaningful benchmark showing how the plan's fee structure stacked up against genuinely better-managed alternatives. Simply pointing to industry-wide averages, Judge Bazis ruled, wasn't nearly specific enough to clear the bar.

Repackaged Arguments, Same Fate

The loyalty allegations fared no better, and for a familiar reason. Judge Bazis leaned on the Eighth Circuit's 2020 ruling in Dormani v. Target Corp., which set a clear rule: plaintiffs can't simply relabel weak prudence claims as loyalty violations and hope for a different outcome. In that earlier case, the appeals court had upheld the dismissal of a suit alleging mismanagement of an employee stock ownership plan — a precedent that echoed directly into this ruling.

"Here, in the absence of any well-pled factual allegations that defendants acted imprudently as fiduciaries, the court cannot draw an inference that Defendants acted out of improper motives," Judge Bazis wrote, closing off any path toward inferring bad intent from thin factual soil.

No Second Chance to Amend

The plaintiffs made one last attempt to keep their case alive, tucking an informal request to amend their complaint into the end of an opposition brief. Judge Bazis wasn't persuaded by the maneuver. "The court will deny the plaintiffs' request because plaintiffs made no formal request to amend and no amended complaint was attached to the informal request," she said — a procedural misstep that sealed the case's fate for good.

Silence From Both Sides

An attorney representing the proposed class declined to comment on the ruling. Ameritas likewise offered no public statement.

The Legal Teams Involved

The proposed class was represented by Donald R. Reavey and Mark K. Gyandoh of Capozzi Adler PC. Ameritas, meanwhile, relied on René E. Thorne and Dorothy D. McDermott of Jackson Lewis PC to argue its defense.

For now, the case stands as a cautionary tale for future ERISA fee litigation — a reminder that alleging a number is too high isn't the same as proving it, and without a solid benchmark, even a compelling story about "millions lost" can dissolve under judicial scrutiny.