During the past few months, some big corporations have had their retirement plan forfeiture lawsuits dismissed, including Wells Fargo and JP Morgan’s suits. But last week, WakeMed Health & Hospitals was sued by a former employee. The class-action suit alleges that the North Carolina–based hospital system mismanages its workers’ retirement plan by using forfeited contributions for its own benefit, which “cost plan participants millions of dollars.”

Participant-plaintiff Jeanette Tillery, on behalf of the 12,000 participants in the WakeMed 403(b) Retirement Savings Plan, alleges that WakeMed consistently chose “to use plan participant forfeited funds to reduce company contributions to the plan instead of using the funds to reduce or eliminate the amounts charged to plan participants for administrative and recordkeeping services,” according to the lawsuit, Tillery v. WakeMed Health & Hospitals et al. WakeMed’s consistent choice to “prioritize the interests of the company over that of the plan participants”—in other words, instead of reducing plan expenses paid by employees—saved the health system more than $10 million between 2019 and 2023, according to the lawsuit. The suit alleges that the defendants “based the decision of how to allocate forfeitures solely on the company’s own self-interest and failed to consider … the interests of the plan and its participants.”