The Supreme Court has denied cert in Amschwand v. Spherion – the Fifth Circuit decision which denies death benefits as an impermissible attempt to collect money damages. The facts were extremely sympathetic with the employee’s …
MetLife v. Glenn has engendered extensive discussion. However, so far, one aspect of this decision has gone unremarked: MetLife v. Glenn is one more unintended push from our legal system, nudging employers away from traditional …
I recently criticized the tendency evidenced in several post-Sereboff opinions to merge the requirement of a fund, separable from the defendant’s general assets, with the abandonment of a strict tracing principle. See, :: Seventh Circuit …
The seemingly arid topic of judicial interpretation and construction of federal law has been taken up in a lively and informative discussion on The Legal Theory Blog. The point of departure for the series of …
In the case at bar, the plain language of the policy stated that “[i]f the time limits that We allow for giving notice of claim or for submitting proof of loss is less than the …
The Department has also consistently rejected a construction of ERISA that would render ERISA’s tight limits on the use of plan assets illusory and that would permit plan fiduciaries to expend trust assets to promote …
Wakkinen asserts that another procedural irregularity existed in that UNUM lacked knowledge of Wakkinen’s condition and failed to inquire into his fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome when it denied his claim. We continue to examine …
The opinion is rife with instruction on what a court should not do. In the final analysis, the Court seems to advance a gestalt reasonableness standard (a “combination-of-factors method of review,” the opinion calls it, …
The initial reception by the judiciary is the best indicator of what a Supreme Court decision really “means”. To that end, here’s what I have for decisions citing the case thus far: 1ST CIRCUIT – …
The country’s largest eye-care insurance program plans to ask the Supreme Court to decide whether the Internal Revenue Service properly revoked its tax exemption in 2003, company executives said Tuesday. The proposed filing, by VSP …