Appeals court revives Royal Caribbean retirement plan lawsuit
The Eleventh Circuit returned the case to the trial court without deciding whether the cruise company breached its duties.
The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on August 17, 2026, revived a lawsuit alleging that Royal Caribbean placed unsuitable investments in its employee retirement plan. The appellate court reversed the trial judge’s pretrial dismissal of the case.
Royal Caribbean’s investment committee replaced Vanguard target-date funds with a series managed by Russell in 2014. According to the lawsuit, the Russell funds had never served more than 12 clients and had lost their two largest clients during the previous year.
The appeals court noted that the Russell investments underperformed the funds they replaced by an annual average of 1.51%. They also trailed the funds that later succeeded them by an annual average of 2.12%. Royal Caribbean stopped using the Russell series in 2019.
In allowing the challenge to proceed, the court ruled that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act does not invariably require plaintiffs to identify a directly matching comparison fund when contesting an investment selection. The ruling did not determine that Royal Caribbean had breached its legal duty. Instead, the appeals court sent the lawsuit back to the trial judge to evaluate the complete record.
