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A former trucking company employee urged a South Carolina federal court to certify a 10,000-member class in his lawsuit accusing his former employer of saddling its retirement plan with excessive fees, saying the company's actions affected all plan participants.

In a motion filed Friday, Curtis Whipple told the court that class treatment was the best way forward in his Employee Retirement Income Security Act lawsuit against Southeastern Freight Lines Inc.

Whipple said in a memorandum supporting the motion that the South Carolina-based transportation company breached its fiduciary duties under federal benefits law by failing to properly assess the recordkeeper marketplace and instead retained an excessively expensive asset manager to provide administrative services to its 401(k) plan.

He told the court Friday that his proposed class checks all the boxes required for certification.

"All the questions of law and fact in this action are common to each class member," Whipple said. "If plaintiff proves defendant violated an ERISA-imposed duty, that same breach of duty applies to the plan and by extension all plan participants. Therefore, commonality is satisfied."

He seeks to represent a class of all participants and beneficiaries who have invested in Southeastern's plan since Jan. 1, 2017. He estimates that the class encompasses 10,000 people and therefore contends the numerosity element of class actions is also satisfied.

Because the company's decisions regarding the plan affected each participant the same way, Whipple said, his claims against Southeastern are typical of all other proposed class members.

And since he shares with all proposed class members the goal of recouping plan losses, Whipple said, he's an apt representative and has no conflicts of interest with the rest of the class.

Whipple sued Southeastern in September. He said that throughout the class period, the company failed to monitor or renegotiate the compensation it paid to its retirement plan's recordkeeper, T. Rowe Price RPS Inc.

Because of this oversight, retirement plan participants paid more than $50 per year for TRP's recordkeeping services while participants in similarly sized plans paid closer to $25, Whipple said.

Over the last six years, Southeastern 401(k) participants have shelled out nearly $5 million in administrative fees for services that should have cost about $1.5 million, according to the complaint.

Given that Southeastern's plan had over $1 billion in assets at the end of 2021, Whipple said, it should have used this relatively large size to negotiate lower fees and solicit bids from a variety of recordkeeping service providers in order to obtain a good deal for plan participants.

Representatives of Whipple did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.

Counsel for Southeastern declined to comment.

Whipple is represented by Amanda E. Heystek, Brandon J. Hill and Luis A. Cabassa of Wenzel Fenton Cabassa PA, by Lauren H. Carroway and Marc R. Edelman of Morgan & Morgan and by Michael C. McKay of McKay Law LLC.

Southeastern Freight Lines is represented by Andreas N. Satterfield Jr., Phillip C. Thompson and Rene E. Thorne of Jackson Lewis PC.

The case is Whipple v. Southeastern Freight Lines Inc., case number 3:23-cv-04583, in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina.