Philadelphia, New York, court hearings – I have been everywhere the past week or so other than at my desk where I could put up blog posts. Here’s a run down of interesting things I came across along the way that you may want to read. First, for those of you who can’t get enough
Standard of Review
Two More ERISA Cases for the Supreme Court?
The good folks who write the SCOTUS blog are engaged in one of their periodic attempts to read the tea leaves and predict what cases the Supreme Court will choose to hear. This time, they think the Court will review two ERISA cases, Geddes v. United Staffing – which concerns the standard of review…
Why Structural Conflicts of Interest, Standing Alone, Are Irrelevant
Workplace Prof passes along today this opinion out of the Seventh Circuit by Judge Easterbrook addressing the question of structural conflicts of interest and their effect on the standard of review in ERISA governed benefit cases. Anyone who has read the bulk of my past posts on this subject knows that I do not buy…
Some Thoughts on the Oral Argument in MetLife v. Glenn
Supreme Court to Weigh In on Structural Conflicts of Interest
I suggested some time ago that the Supreme Court looked poised to weigh in on some of the more tempestuous ERISA issues floating around the circuit courts of appeal, and there is probably no single issue that has raised more hackles than the question of so-called structural conflicts of interest, which exists when the administrator…
The Meaning of Arbitrary and Capricious Review
A colleague – who, to protect the innocent, shall remain nameless (sort of a blog witness protection program) – passed along this remarkable decision out of the Fourth Circuit this month, Evans v. Eaton Corporation Long Term Disability Plan. The decision is an elegant and sustained defense of the granting of discretion to administrators…
Two for the Price of One: An Excellent District Court Ruling Worth Reading, and More on the First Circuit’s Decision in Gillis
A couple of notes on cases today. Before the holidays, I posted about the First Circuit’s decision in Gillis, concerning an administrator’s discretion in calculating possible pension payments and how the discretionary authority granted to the administrator drove the conclusion that a challenge to the pension calculations would not be upheld in the courts.…
The First Circuit on an Administrator’s Discretion in Determining the Amount of Retirement Benefits
Oddly, this appears to be “calculating benefits” week among the courts of the First Circuit. In addition to the LeBlanc case I discussed in the last post, the First Circuit just ruled on a case involving a challenge to the calculation of pension benefits. Just as in the LeBlanc case, where a district court found…
More on that Grand Irony Theory
Does the fact pattern below allow for a remedy under ERISA, particularly as the Sereboff/equitable relief line of cases has been interpreted in the First Circuit to date?
The plaintiff employee says that she purchased a life insurance policy on her husband through her employer’s group coverage. When her husband was dying, she resigned
…
Suicide Exclusions Under ERISA Plans, and the Impact, If Any, of the Standard of Review
There’s an interesting, if brief, ERISA case out of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts decided last week that enforced a suicide exclusion in an employer provided supplemental life insurance program. The court found that the evidence in the administrative record supported the administrator’s determination that the employee had committed suicide…