A recent ruling issued by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals resolved a controversial issue in Employee Retirement Income Security Act litigation: Does ERISA’s venue provision, 29 U.S.C. Section 1132(e)(2), preclude enforcement of a forum-selection clause in an employee benefits plan? The petitioner, George Mathias, the plan beneficiary, the secretary of labor, as amicus […]
The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) is extremely broad in its scope. It affects both retirement benefits and other employee benefits such as health insurance in the majority of workplaces in the United States. However, there are exceptions – government employees are exempted from ERISA, meaning that benefits involving federal, state and municipal employees […]
A recent decision issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit illuminates the importance of the standard of judicial review applied to resolution of cases seeking benefits under ERISA. In Ariana M v. Humana Health Plan of Texas, Inc., 2017 WL 1423765 (5th Cir. April 21, 2017), although the court of appeals […]
DeBofsky Law recently received a ruling from Judge Robert Dow, Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Harding v. Hartford Life and Accident Insurance Company, 2017 WL 1316264 (N.D. Ill. April 10, 2017), which thoughtfully analyzed the scope of available discovery in an ERISA action adjudicated under the de novo standard of judicial review.
The recent ruling in Broderick v. Hartford Life and Acc. Ins. Co., 2017 WL 652451 (D. Minn. February 16, 2017) presents an interesting challenge – if a doctor gives an opinion that his patient can work which contradicts the doctor’s treatment notes and other contemporaneous statements, would that be a sufficient basis to deny benefits?
The practice by insurance companies of hiring doctors to review disability benefit claim files has been coming under increasing fire.Doctors are hired to assess a claimant’s disability based on a review of records rather than examining the claimant or even speaking with the claimant or the treating doctors.A recent ruling from Tennessee, Carty v. Metro. […]