The Seventh Circuit rejected a disability plan participant’s argument that an untimely decision denying his claim for long-term disability benefits warranted changing the standard of review from arbitrary and capricious to de novo.  In so ruling, the Court explained that had plaintiff filed suit once the time for a timely decision had passed (because his

The Ninth Circuit held that a plan administrator’s failure to render a decision on a long-term disability benefits claim within the period mandated by the plan and ERISA did not alter the standard of review that the court should apply to the plan fiduciary’s decision concerning the claim.  Plaintiff Isela Dimery received long-term disability benefits until Reliance Standard Life Insurance, the plan administrator and fiduciary, declined to continue paying the benefits. 

The Ninth Circuit recently held that where an ERISA plan provides the plan administrator discretionary authority to determine benefit claims, procedural violations that occur during the course of the administrative claims process “do not alter the standard of review unless those violations are so flagrant as to alter the substantive relationship between the employer and