Claim regulations in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act impose deadlines on claimants and plan administrators to submit claims and render claim decisions. Strict deadlines also apply to claim appeals. Claimants are allowed up to 180 days to submit appeals from denials of disability benefit claims, and if a claimant submits an appeal even a […]
Mark DeBofsky will be speaking at the American Bar Association Joint Committee on Employee Benefits Advanced ERISA Litigation program in Chicago, Illinois on October 18, 2019 on how to write and argue a successful appeal in an ERISA case.
Our firm recently won the case of Dominic W v. Northern Trust Co. Employee Welfare Benefit Plan, 2019 WL 2576558 (N.D. Ill. June 24, 2019), which took a health benefit plan to task for denying residential treatment behavioral health claim.
Does a claimant seeking disability need to prove the cause of disability to qualify for benefits? According to a recent federal decision from Georgia, the answer is no. Arthur Lesser IV, the plaintiff in Lesser v. Reliance Standard Life Insurance Co., 2019 WL 2416926 (N.D. Ga. June 4, 2019), worked as a software engineer for […]
The outcome of many disability insurance cases depends on the court’s assessment of the claimant’s credibility since symptom complaints are difficult to objectively verify. A ruling from a federal court in New York offers an excellent example. The case of Khan v. Provident Life and Accident Insurance Co., 2019 WL 1970516 (W.D. N.Y., May 3, 2019), involved Dr. Farooq Khan, a neurologist, who complained of joint pain and fatigue that worsened over several years, although an exact diagnosis was elusive.