California Insurance Litigation Blog

In the last several years, the scope of discovery in ERISA cases has been a point of contention between plaintiff and defense counsel.  Plaintiffs typically want free range to conduct discovery on any potentially relevant information addressing the conflict of interest issue while defense counsel would like discovery requests to be as narrow as possible.  Generally, discovery in ERISA cases is limited to what was before the plan administrator at the time the claim decision was made.  In other words, the administrative record.  However, in 2008, the Supreme Court in Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Glenn, 554 U.S. 105 (2008)... More

One of the most interesting questions in ERISA litigation is: What constitutes the administrative record for purposes of determining whether the administrator abused its discretion in making a claim determination?  Bartholomew v. Unum Life Ins. Co., 579 F. Supp. 2d 1339 (W.D. Wash. 2008) helped answer this question. Plaintiff, who sued to recover benefits under her long-term disability (LTD) plan, sought to expand the scope of discovery under ERISA by seeking documents outside the Administrative Record. Among others, the Plaintiff requested; “Details of compensation and financial incentives,” “revenue and profitability reports for the last 10 years,” and “[a]ny document discussing... More