In Wright v. Raytheon Co. Short Term Disability Plan, 2008 U.S.Dist.LEXIS 81951 (Sept. 17), a district court in Arizona thoughtfully applied Metropolitan Life v. Glenn, 128 S.Ct. 2343 (2008), to find that MetLife acted under a conflict of interest when it denied Alan Wright’s disability claim. The plaintiff, who had undergone heart bypass surgery, suffered […]
The case of Pannebecker v. Liberty Life Assurance Company of Boston, 2008 U.S.App.LEXIS 19753 (9th Cir., Sept. 18), involved the question of whether, in assessing a claimant’s ability to work at ”any occupation,” the individual’s pre-disability earnings and station in life have to be taken into consideration. This claim arose in 1996 when Nancy J. […]
In a recent Social Security disability ruling, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals offered a number of very thoughtful and constructive observations about the assessment of disability. The case of Bauer v. Astrue, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 14484 (7th Cir., July 8), involved a claimant who suffered from bipolar disorder, a mental condition characterized […]
A recent district court ruling in Texas offers a cautionary tale to practitioners. Acuna v. Connecticut General Life Ins.Co., 2008 U.S.Dist.LEXIS 51136 (E.D.Texas May 28, 2008), involved an anesthesiologist who suffered from a severe ocular disorder that forced her to stop working and pursue a claim for disability benefits in 2003.
In Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch, 489 U.S. 101 (1989), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that benefit claims under the ERISA law should be evaluated under principles of trust law, which allows discretionary authority to be vested in trustees to determine eligibility to receive benefits and to interpret the plan documents. At the […]
A recent ruling from the federal court in Atlanta, Johnson v. Metropolitan Life Ins.Co., 2008 U.S.Dist.LEXIS 42944 (N.D.Ga. May 30, 2008), offered a very interesting and thorough analysis of a disability benefit dispute. In Johnson, the plaintiff, who had worked for Cingular for more than 13 years as a ”field coordinator, global accounts,” suffered from […]