by Cody AllisonDutkewych v. Std. Ins. Co.
In this 2015 ERISA case, there was substantial evidence that plaintiff’s mental illness, whether or not related to chronic Lyme disease, contributed to his disability as of June 2011 where reports from plaintiff’s own treating physicians established that he had ongoing mental disabilities, in addition to his physical symptoms, as of the period around June, 2011. The plan administrator’s interpretation of the Mental Disability Limitation and the Rules governing its application was by no means unreasonable and so must prevail. The plan administrator’s limitation of the plaintiff’s benefits to 24 months was not arbitrary or capricious given the substantial evidence in the record that mental disorders, regardless of their cause, contributed to his disability as of June 1, 2011.
Judgment affirmed.
If you need assistance navigating your claim for short term or long-term disability benefits under ERISA, or it is time to sue the insurance company, please do not hesitate to give Cody Allison & Associates, PLLC a call (844) LTD-CODY, (615) 234-6000. or send us an e-mail Cody@codyallison.com. We provide representation nationwide and have successfully sued all the major insurance companies in many states. Our headquarters are located in Nashville, Tennessee. We offer a free consultation and would love to speak with you.
by Cody AllisonDoe v. Std. Ins. Co.
In this 2017 ERISA case, an ERISA claims administrator acted arbitrarily and capriciously by determining an attorney’s disability onset date based on when she was disabled from performing the duties of a generic “lawyer,” rather than the specialized duties of an environmental lawyer. The administrator charged an enhanced premium for specialty coverage and unreasonably undercut that coverage by failing to consider the specific requirements of the attorney’s specialty. The appropriate remedy was an award of retroactive benefits rather than a remand to the administrator.
Judgment reversed.
If you need assistance navigating your claim for short term or long-term disability benefits under ERISA, or it is time to sue the insurance company, please do not hesitate to give Cody Allison & Associates, PLLC a call (844) LTD-CODY, (615) 234-6000. or send us an e-mail Cody@codyallison.com. We provide representation nationwide and have successfully sued all the major insurance companies in many states. Our headquarters are located in Nashville, Tennessee. We offer a free consultation and would love to speak with you.
by Cody AllisonGross v. Sun Life Assur. Co. of Can.
In this 2013 ERISA case, the longer-term disability benefits provided by an employer were subject to ERISA where the documents associated with the employee benefits program established all five constituent elements of an ERISA plan. ERISA’s safe harbor provision did not apply as the employer did not provide multiple, independent plans. The plan administrator’s rejection of the employee’s claim for benefits was subject to de novo review as the “satisfactory to us” language in the policy did not state with sufficient clarity that the administrator was to make a judgment largely insulated from judicial review by reason of being discretionary. Applying the de novo standard, the court could not determine whether the employee’s disability claim was justifiably rejected on the basis of the surveillance video and the likelihood of symptom embellishment, particularly relating to her right arm.
Judgment vacated; case remanded with directions.
If you need assistance navigating your claim for short term or long-term disability benefits under ERISA, or it is time to sue the insurance company, please do not hesitate to give Cody Allison & Associates, PLLC a call (844) LTD-CODY, (615) 234-6000. or send us an e-mail Cody@codyallison.com. We provide representation nationwide and have successfully sued all the major insurance companies in many states. Our headquarters are located in Nashville, Tennessee. We offer a free consultation and would love to speak with you.
by Cody AllisonColby v. Union Sec. Ins. Co.
In this 2013 ERISA case, the plaintiff claimant exhausted her administrative appeals and brought suit against defendant long term disability plan administrator. The parties cross-moved for judgment on the record and the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts deemed the administrator’s termination of benefits unreasonable. The administrator appealed.
The central question was whether, in addiction context, a risk of relapse could be so significant as to constitute a current disability. Although its decision created a circuit split, the instant court answered the question affirmatively. A risk of relapse into substance dependence – like a risk of relapse into cardiac distress or a risk of relapse into orthopedic complications – could swell to so significant a level as to constitute a current disability. The holding was narrow. It pivoted on a fusion of the plain language of the plan and the administrator’s all-or-nothing approach to its benefits determination. The administrator could have written into the plan an exclusion for the risk of relapse, but it did not choose to do so. Without such a written exclusion in place, the administrator acted arbitrarily and capriciously in refusing to consider whether the claimant’s risk of relapse swelled to the level of a disabililty. A benefits determination could not be reasoned when the plan administrator sidestepped the central inquiry. Further, the district court did not abuse its discretion in awarding retroactive benefits. It already had remanded the case once, to no avail.
The district court’s decision was affirmed.
If you need assistance navigating your claim for short term or long-term disability benefits under ERISA, or it is time to sue the insurance company, please do not hesitate to give Cody Allison & Associates, PLLC a call (844) LTD-CODY, (615) 234-6000. or send us an e-mail Cody@codyallison.com. We provide representation nationwide and have successfully sued all the major insurance companies in many states. Our headquarters are located in Nashville, Tennessee. We offer a free consultation and would love to speak with you.
by Cody AllisonSloan v. Hartford Life and Accident Ins. Co.
In this 2006 ERISA case, the appellant insurer challenged the U.S. District Court’s determination that the appellee injured party qualified for long-term disability benefits under a plan governed by ERISA. The court first addressed the insurer’s argument that the district court abused its discretion in admitting evidence outside the administrative record. As to the duplicative medical evidence, it held that the district court did not abuse its discretion. As for the nonduplicative new evidence considered, two reasons given by the district court were sufficient to support its decision, i.e., the social security definition of disability was very similar to the definition in the plan, and the district court considered the administrative law judge’s credibility determinations regarding the subjective complaints of pain to be highly probative of the ultimate question of disability. The court turned next to the finding that the injured party qualified for LTD benefits. Under the clear error standard, there was enough evidence to support the findings. Finally, because there was simply no legitimate basis for the insurer’s contention regarding a potential offset of social security benefits at a point in time earlier than January 2001, the district court committed no error when it failed to remand the case to allow the insurer the first opportunity to calculate the offset administratively.
The district court’s decision was affirmed.
If you need assistance navigating your claim for short term or long-term disability benefits under ERISA, or it is time to sue the insurance company, please do not hesitate to give Cody Allison & Associates, PLLC a call (844) LTD-CODY, (615) 234-6000. or send us an e-mail Cody@codyallison.com. We provide representation nationwide and have successfully sued all the major insurance companies in many states. Our headquarters are located in Nashville, Tennessee. We offer a free consultation and would love to speak with you.
by Cody AllisonHampton v. Reliance Std. Life Ins. Co.
In this 2014 ERISA case, where a claimant was diagnosed with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, a claims-review fiduciary did not abuse its discretion under ERISA by denying his claim for long-term disability benefits. It was reasonable for the fiduciary to interpret the plan to require that the claimant show that the injury or sickness itself, independent of the loss of license, rendered him unable to perform his occupation. Substantial evidence supported the fiduciary’s determination that the claimant was not totally disabled because although his physician opined that the claimant would be unable to work as an over-the-road truck driver based on the Department of Transportation’s regulations, he identified no physical limitations on the claimant’s ability to do so as a direct result of his diabetes.
Judgment reversed, fee award vacated.
If you need assistance navigating your claim for short term or long-term disability benefits under ERISA, or it is time to sue the insurance company, please do not hesitate to give Cody Allison & Associates, PLLC a call (844) LTD-CODY, (615) 234-6000. or send us an e-mail Cody@codyallison.com. We provide representation nationwide and have successfully sued all the major insurance companies in many states. Our headquarters are located in Nashville, Tennessee. We offer a free consultation and would love to speak with you.
by Cody AllisonRote v. Titan Tire Corp.
In this 2010 ERISA case, the Appellate pan administrator appealed from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, which held that the administrator abused its discretion in denying appellee employee’s application for long-term disability benefits. The district court also awarded the employee attorney’s fees incurred from the date she filed her original suit in district court.
The court agreed that the administrator abused its discretion in denying the employee’s application for long-term disability benefits under ERISA. The administrator’s sole reason for denying the employee’s application was that she had not shown her disability to be “permanent.” To reach that conclusion, the administrator interpreted doctors’ letters as suggesting that the employee’s restrictions were not permanent, focusing on the use of the term “indefinitely” and relying on one dictionary definition of “indefinite.” However, the court ruled that the intended meaning of “indefinitely” — that the restrictions were permanent — was clear from the context of the letters that the employee’s attorney and the doctors exchanged. The court found no abuse of discretion in the district court’s decision to award attorney’s fees pursuant to the statute. The administrator relied on a hypertechnical reading of the medical evidence and ignored the doctors’ attempts to clarify their opinions. Additionally, there was evidence that the administrator attempted to frustrate the employee’s ability to move the claims process forward.
The judgment of the district court was affirmed.
If you need assistance navigating your claim for short term or long-term disability benefits under ERISA, or it is time to sue the insurance company, please do not hesitate to give Cody Allison & Associates, PLLC a call (844) LTD-CODY, (615) 234-6000. or send us an e-mail Cody@codyallison.com. We provide representation nationwide and have successfully sued all the major insurance companies in many states. Our headquarters are located in Nashville, Tennessee. We offer a free consultation and would love to speak with you.
by Cody AllisonAvenoso v. Reliance Std. Life Ins. Co.
In this 2021 ERISA case, the district court’s entry of summary judgment in favor of the claimant was affirmed because, while the court adjudicated the parties’ summary-judgment motions as if it were ruling in a bench trial, whether the district court’s decision survived de novo review of its legal determinations and clear-error review of its factual findings turned on whether it clearly erred in finding the claimant lacked sedentary work capacity, on the record before it, the appellate court could not say the district court’s finding the claimant lacked sedentary-work capacity was clearly erroneous, and it had to disregard as harmless the district court’s error in adjudicating the parties’ motions for summary judgment as if it were ruling in a bench trial. The judgment of the lower court was affirmed.
If you need assistance navigating your claim for short term or long term disability benefits under ERISA, or it is time to sue the insurance company, please do not hesitate to give Cody Allison & Associates, PLLC a call (844) LTD-CODY, (615) 234-6000. or send us an e-mail Cody@codyallison.com. We provide representation nationwide and have successfully sued all the major insurance companies in many states. Our headquarters are located in Nashville, Tennessee. We offer a free consultation and would love to speak with you.
by Cody AllisonZurndorfer v. Unum Life Ins. Co. of Am.
In this 2008 ERISA case, the Plaintiff insured brought an acation against the Defendant plan administrator pursuant to ERISA, seeking reinstatement of long-term disability benefits. Before the Court were the administrator’s motion for judgment on the administrative record and the insured’s motion for summary judgment
After the insured had shoulder surgery, she did not return to her job as a sales person. The insured sought long-term disability benefits based primarily on her multiple sclerosis (MS). The administrator approved the insured’s claim and assisted the insured in obtaining Social Security Disability benefits. The administrator subsequently terminated the insured’s long-term disability benefits, finding that there was no change in the insured’s MS when she stopped working, that the insured’s MS had stabilized, and that the insured was able to return to work once she recovered from her surgery. The court held that the administrator’s determination that the insured was no longer disabled was arbitrary. The administrator refused to consider evidence showing that before the insured stopped working, she regularly fell and had difficulty walking and using stairs. That the insured’s MS was stable during chemotherapy did not control a determination concerning the insured’s condition non months after the treatment had ended. The administrator did not rationally address how the insured would be able to perform a job that requir3ed significant travel while carrying presentation materials.
Holding that the insured was entitled to reinstatement of her long-term disability benefits and an award of attorney’s fees, the court denied the administrator’s motion for judgment on the administrative record and granted the insured’s motion for summary judgment.
If you need assistance navigating your claim for short term or long term disability benefits under ERISA, or it is time to sue the insurance company, please do not hesitate to give Cody Allison & Associates, PLLC a call (844) LTD-CODY, (615) 234-6000. or send us an e-mail Cody@codyallison.com. We provide representation nationwide and have successfully sued all the major insurance companies in many states. Our headquarters are located in Nashville, Tennessee. We offer a free consultation and would love to speak with you.
by Cody AllisonCook v. N.Y. Times Co. Group Long Term Disability Plan
In this 2004 ERISA case, the employee claimed to suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome. Neither the initial claim denial nor the subsequent determinations on appeal explained why these findings in her initial statement and her subsequent lengthy and detailed appeal letter were insufficient. Inter alia, the court held that the plan administrator was entitled to evaluate the evidence submitted and find it lacking on any reasonable ground. However, it was not entitled to fail to inform the employee of why the evidence she had submitted was found deficient in the first place. Although the denial letter on which plaintiff’s second appeal was based was far more specific than the first denial letter, it still failed to include the criteria upon which the determination was based and to inform the employee of her rights to access her file. Because the denial notice on the second appeal again failed to provide the required information, the denial of the third appeal also violated ERISA. The administrator’s failure to provide the required information as to the criteria it relied upon and the rights attendant upon the appeal rendered its determination so procedurally flawed as to be arbitrary and capricious.
The ERISA plan’s motion for summary judgment was denied and its determination vacated. The employee’s cross-motion for summary judgment was granted to the extent that the plan administrator’s determination was vacated but was otherwise denied. The case was remanded to the plan administrator for reconsideration. The employee’s request for costs and attorney’s fees was granted.
If you need assistance navigating your claim for short term or long term disability benefits under ERISA, or it is time to sue the insurance company, please do not hesitate to give Cody Allison & Associates, PLLC a call (844) LTD-CODY, (615) 234-6000. or send us an e-mail Cody@codyallison.com. We provide representation nationwide and have successfully sued all the major insurance companies in many states. Our headquarters are located in Nashville, Tennessee. We offer a free consultation and would love to speak with you.