Many cases have recently challenged the technical content in various employer-provided COBRA notices. The premise of these lawsuits has been that even minor deviations from COBRA regulations from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) should make a plan administrator liable for penalties even if the notices otherwise included comprehensive COBRA information. Certainly, plan administrators should work hard to ensure COBRA notices are clear and comprehensive; however, a recent decision supports the view that hyper-technical compliance is not the goal—clear explanations of the COBRA rights ought to be enough for compliance purposes.
