Gloria Watts v. Bellsouth Telecommunications, Inc.

How courts have described this case

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

• explaining that courts will interpret policy terms and descriptions of those terms “from the perspective of an average plan participant”
• implying that model language, without more, could not reasonably be read to foreclose exhaustion defense
• recognizing that a claimant’s failure to exhaust could be excused if “the reason the claimant failed to exhaust is that she reasonably believed, based upon what the summary plan description said, that she was not required to exhaust her administrative remedies before filing a lawsuit”
• adding an exception for a claimant’s reasonable misinterpretation of the plan summary
• “Whatever their opinions say, judicial decisions cannot make law beyond the facts of the cases in which those decisions are announced.”
• “Whatever their opinions say, judicial decisions cannot make law beyond the facts of the cases in which those deci- sions are announced.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).