NEW YORK, March 10, 2026, 10:28 EDT
JPMorgan Chase employees may pursue part of a proposed class action accusing the bank of mismanaging its health and prescription benefits plan, after a federal judge in Manhattan refused to throw out key claims. The suit says workers in the largest U.S. bank’s health plan overpaid for drugs and premiums. 1
The ruling matters because it lands in a widening fight over how big employers police drug-plan vendors, and it follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s April 2025 Cornell decision, which made it easier for workers to keep some ERISA cases alive at the pleading stage. ERISA is the U.S. law that governs workplace benefit plans. 2
For JPMorgan, the case opens another legal front just weeks after it told investors first-quarter investment-banking fees and markets revenue were set to rise and that it was keeping its 2026 adjusted expense target at $105 billion. 3
The dispute centers on JPMorgan’s self-funded health plan, where the employer rather than an outside insurer bears the claims cost. The complaint says the bank used CVS Caremark as its pharmacy benefit manager, or PBM, the middleman that negotiates drug prices, processes claims and helps decide which medicines a plan covers, and failed to properly monitor what it was paying. 1
Workers say the plan paid inflated prices on 366 generic drugs, with average markups of 211%. One example in the complaint says a 30-unit prescription of the multiple-sclerosis drug teriflunomide was billed at $6,229.23, up from $16.20; the judge said employees may try to prove JPMorgan allowed repeated, unauthorized excessive payments to CVS Caremark, whose parent CVS Health is an investment-banking client of the bank. JPMorgan did not immediately comment. 4
Rochon did trim the case. She dismissed fiduciary-duty claims tied to loyalty and prudence, but let prohibited-transaction claims move ahead — in plain terms, claims that the plan may have overpaid a service provider. Kai Richter, a lawyer for the employees, said the ruling confirmed that “paying more for prescription drugs constitutes an injury recognized under the law.” 1
The case lands amid broader pressure on PBMs, which have come under attack from regulators and plan sponsors over opaque pricing. The FTC said in January that CVS Caremark, Optum and Express Scripts marked up some medicines by hundreds or thousands of percent from 2017 to 2022 and collected $7.3 billion above estimated acquisition costs; CVS Health pushed back, with David Whitrap, its vice president of external affairs, saying critics included groups that “benefit from weakening PBMs.” 5
JPMorgan is not alone. Wells Fargo was sued last year over alleged overpayments in its employee drug plan, and Johnson & Johnson faced a similar class action in 2024, a sign that plaintiffs are trying to hold employers, not just drug middlemen, liable for how pharmacy benefits are bought and priced. 6
But the path ahead is still messy. The Supreme Court said defendants in ERISA cases can raise statutory exemptions after a complaint is filed, including whether a plan paid only reasonable compensation for necessary services, and Justice Samuel Alito warned that weaker suits could survive long enough to impose heavy discovery costs; Rochon likewise said JPMorgan may still have ample defenses to the claims that remain. 2
