It is not uncommon to find provisions in disability and accidental death insurance policies that exclude coverage in situations where alcohol or drug ingestion causes the injury or death. It is not enough, though, to merely show the insured was intoxicated. According to cases such as Holloway v. J.C. Penney Life Insurance Co., 190 F.3d […]
Short-term and long-term disability plans are supposed to provide workers and professionals with coverage to make ends meet when a serious medical impairment or injury takes the person away from work. Not everybody participates in these insurance plans. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the roughly 39 percent of people working in private […]
A recent ruling from a federal court in Arizona offers a lesson on the consequences of discovery abuse: The court imposed severe sanctions on an insurer for wrongfully withholding documents requested in discovery. The case of Sell v. Country Life Insurance Co., 2016 WL 3179461 (D. Ariz., June 1, 2016), involved a claim for disability […]
DeBofsky & Associates successfully challenged a forum selection clause in a recent ERISA case.
The recent case of Gooden v. Unum Life Ins. Co. of Am., 2016 WL 3059752 (E.D. Tenn. March 30, 2016) involved a familiar scenario – whether a “list bill” arrangement constitutes an ERISA plan.
In Halo v. Yale Health Plan, 2016 WL 1426291 (2nd Cir., April 12, 2016), the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently addressed whether an Employee Retirement Income Security Act-governed health insurance plan’s failure to issue a benefit determination compliant with federal claims-processing regulations should be penalized and, if so, how. The U.S. District Court […]