Also known as: fringe benefits · fringe-benefit · perk · employee benefit
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
Additional compensation or perquisites provided to employees, officers, or directors beyond base salary or wages. These often include insurance coverage, pensions, medical care, and other non-wage payments authorized or maintained by an employer or corporation.
Fisher Foods appoints its fleet operations director Fabian Flynn to serve as trustee of an employee welfare trust at the company's request. After a claim denial leads to suit against Flynn, Fisher Foods maintains liability insurance covering Flynn in that capacity. The policy responds even though the corporation itself could not indemnify the same liability.
Lieutenant Fatima Flores, an Air Force officer, seeks increased quarters and medical benefits for her spouse under federal statutes providing fringe benefits to uniformed services members. The statutes grant these allowances only to male officers' spouses but not to female officers' spouses. Flores challenges the distinction as unconstitutional gender discrimination.
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Francois Fortier joins Flagship Logistics as a line driver. Under the collective bargaining agreement, his company seniority determines eligibility for vacations, pensions, and other fringe benefits from his hire date. Bargaining-unit seniority alone governs job bidding and layoff protection. The dual system affects how Fortier accrues and uses these benefits.
Fumiko Fujimoto represents currently injured plaintiffs in a proposed class settlement against a manufacturer. The settlement fund must balance immediate payments to injured claimants against reserves for future exposure-only claimants who will later seek fringe benefits such as pensions. Conflicts arise because generous current payouts reduce resources available for later benefit claims.
Freeman Engineering offers early retirement incentives that reduce health coverage for workers over fifty but preserve full fringe benefits for younger employees. Fabian Flynn, a fifty-five-year-old engineer, alleges the plan discriminates on the basis of age. The company defends the structure as protecting benefits for those closer to retirement.
Frostline Textiles maintains an employee disability plan that excludes coverage for pregnancy-related absences while covering other temporary disabilities. Fiona Foster, a textile worker, is denied benefits during her pregnancy leave. The plan's distinction in fringe benefit coverage prompts a challenge under Title VII.
Yes. Model Bus. Corp. Act § 8.57 expressly authorizes a corporation to maintain insurance covering a director or officer who serves at the corporation's request as a trustee or agent of an employee benefit plan. Coverage applies regardless of whether the corporation could indemnify the same liability.
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Seniority systems often determine eligibility for fringe benefits such as vacations and pensions. When a system is alleged to perpetuate past discrimination, courts examine whether benefit calculations based on company-wide seniority violate Title VII even if competitive seniority remains separate.
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No. Statutes granting increased quarters allowances and medical benefits only to male service members' spouses but not to female service members' spouses violate equal protection. The distinction rests on archaic gender stereotypes rather than any substantial government interest.
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…no § 10(b) violation." Indeed, were the source expressly to authorize its agents to trade on the confidential information—as a perk or bonus, perhaps—there would likewise be no § 10(b) violation. Yet in either case—disclosed misuse or authorized use—the hypothesized "inhibiting impact on market participation," would be…