Franks v. Central Garden & Pet Co.

In this case the employer provided the terminated employee with a COBRA election notice and the employee elected COBRA. 

The employee later sued the employer on a number of employment related issues, including COBRA. The employee claimed that the court should award statutory penalties because the notice laced certain information required by the DOL final COBRA regulations which made the election notice insufficient to permit her to make an informed decision about whether to elect to continue coverage through COBRA.

The court disagreed with the employee and dismissed the COBRA claim. The court conceded that the election notice was technically deficient under the DOL regulations because it did not provide either the date on which health coverage would terminate (in the absence of a COBRA election) or the date by which the election must be made. However, as the terminated employee successfully elected COBRA, the court concluded that these technical deficiencies did not render the notice insufficient to permit an informed COBRA decision and did not impose any penalties against the employer.

Although the employer did not have to pay any COBRA penalties, it is still important to note that the COBRA election notice was found to be insufficient and was missing key data.