A worker at JBS USA's massive Greeley beef plant has sued the company, claiming its retirement plan overseers let an underperforming investment option quietly drain millions of dollars from thousands of employees' 401(k) accounts. Jerome Ziegler filed the federal complaint on September 22 in U.S. District Court in Denver, alleging that JBS USA Food Co. Holdings and its internal investment committee failed to properly monitor a so-called stable value fund inside the company's retirement plan.
According to The Denver Post, the lawsuit centers on the Guaranteed Interest Fund, a capital-preservation vehicle offered through plan administrator Empower and designed to protect retirement savings from market swings while still earning interest. Ziegler's complaint alleges the fund consistently underperformed three separate benchmarks: a published stable value index, the three-month U.S. Treasury bill named in the committee's own investment policy statement, and rates offered by comparable retirement plans elsewhere. The suit was formally docketed as case number 1:26-cv-04672, according to court records reviewed by PacerMonitor.
The financial stakes described in the complaint are significant. Per the lawsuit, the plan lost at least $4.7 million between 2020 and 2024 because of the fund's underperformance, and those losses reportedly continued accruing after 2024. The complaint also notes that the fund held an average balance of about $51 million between 2019 and 2022, and it alleges the fund was already lagging its benchmarks as far back as 2019 — years before the committee took action, per the filing.
A Fiduciary Duty That Never Ends
Ziegler's suit rests on a legal theory with deep roots: that plan fiduciaries have an ongoing obligation to monitor and remove underperforming investment options, not just a duty to choose them wisely at the outset. The U.S. Supreme Court established that standard in its 2015 ruling in Tibble v. Edison International, according to the Pension Rights Center, which found that statutory time limits don't excuse fiduciaries who fail to periodically review existing plan options.
The complaint alleges the JBS Investment Committee kept the Guaranteed Interest Fund in place without further investigation even as it lagged behind the benchmarks named in the suit.
Ziegler himself was a participant in the JBS plan and held a portion of his individual account in the Guaranteed Interest Fund until the fourth quarter of 2023, per the Denver Post's reporting. His lawsuit seeks recovery of losses on behalf of all participants who invested in the fund, replacement of the fund itself, removal of fiduciaries accused of breaching their duties, and a court order requiring JBS to review its plan investment options going forward.
Part of a Broader Wave Hitting Retirement Plans Nationwide
The JBS case is not an isolated filing. Since the beginning of 2025, plaintiffs' attorneys have filed more than two dozen putative class actions across federal courts challenging the crediting rates and management of stable value and guaranteed interest funds in large employer 401(k) plans, according to Trucker Huss. Hoodline previously reported on a similar case in which Seattle hospital workers sued Providence over a $70 million 401(k) hit tied to a mismanaged investment option.
Empower, the provider of the fund at the center of Ziegler's complaint, has faced its own regulatory scrutiny. In August 2025, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Empower Advisory Group and Empower Financial Services for failing to adequately disclose financial conflicts of interest when steering retirement plan participants into higher-fee advisory services.
A pending U.S. Supreme Court case could shape how far lawsuits like Ziegler's can go. The justices agreed in January to hear Anderson v. Intel Corporation Investment Policy Committee, a case addressing whether ERISA plaintiffs must point to a meaningful benchmark when alleging fiduciary mismanagement, according to October Three Consulting. Lower courts remain divided on whether comparing guaranteed rates to Treasury bills or general indexes is enough to prove a fiduciary breach.
JBS USA's Greeley Connection
JBS USA describes itself as a global food company with a large processing plant and its North American headquarters in Greeley. Company materials cite 250 facilities across more than 20 countries and products sold in 180 countries worldwide, reflecting the scale of the retirement plan asset pool now at the center of Ziegler's claims.
No Comment From Either Side
Ziegler is represented by Gary Klinger, a senior partner at Chicago-based law firm Milberg. Neither Klinger nor JBS representatives responded to requests for comment by the time of publication, according to the Denver Post's reporting.
For now, the fate of Ziegler's claims — and the millions of dollars in alleged losses tied to the Guaranteed Interest Fund — rests with the federal court in Denver.
