Ellen v. Ellis v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• requiring that findings of fact made after a bench trial “shall not be set aside unless clearly erroneous”
• holding that where the benefit plan grants the administrator or the plan fiduciary discretionary authority to determine eligibility or to construe the terms of the plan, the deci- sion to deny benefits must be reviewed for abuse of discretion
• finding that plan administrator complied with ERISA’s requirements when it issued letter explaining the reasons for the denial, quoted the relevant plan language, and described appeal procedures
• finding that plan administrator complied with ERISA’s requirements when it issued letter explaining the reasons for the denial, quoted the relevant plan language, and described appeal procedures
• finding that a plan administrator did not abuse its discretion by denying benefits when the claimant's primary medical provider found disability but independent medical consultants, reviewing the claimant’s file, disagreed
• stating that if a conflict of interest exists under ERISA, a court should not deviate from the abuse of discretion standard, rather “the court modifies that abuse of discretion standard according to a sliding scale”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).