In Nichols v. Reliance Standard Life Insurance Co., 2018 WL 3213618 (S.D. Miss. June 29, 2018), the court considered the actions of Reliance Standard Insurance Company (“Reliance”), one of the country’s largest disability insurers.  The court addressed whether Reliance’s denial of disability benefits to the claimant Juanita Nichols (“Ms. Nichols”) was an abuse of discretion. In its ruling, the court discovered a decades-long pattern of arbitrary claim denials and other misdeeds, a pattern the court considered when assessing Reliance’s actions.

Ms. Nichols was a 62-year-old employee of Peco Foods’ (“Peco”) chicken processing factory in Sebastopol, Mississippi.  Ms. Nichols’ duties included spending a minimum of twenty percent of her work day in processing areas, where temperatures at the factory were kept at eight degrees above freezing.  After being diagnosed with circulatory system disorders that were exacerbated in cold environments, her doctors concluded that exposure to the cold could give her serious circulatory problems, including gangrene.  As a result, Ms. Nichols stopped working at Peco, as she spent much of her day in near-freezing conditions.

Ms. Nichols applied for long-term disability benefits through the group insurance plan administered by Reliance.  Reliance admitted that Ms. Nichols’ medical conditions prevented her from working in cold temperatures yet determined that Ms. Nichols’ occupation as it was performed in the national economy was “sanitarian,” an occupation with duties that do not require exposure to cold temperatures.  Based on this determination, Reliance denied Ms. Nichols’ application for disability benefits. After a subsequent appeal of the claim denial that Reliance upheld, Ms. Nichols filed a lawsuit against Reliance to challenge her denial under ERISA. ERISA’s purpose is, in part, to protect workers by establishing standards of conduct for those who manage their benefit plans.  ERISA allows employees to recover benefits due under a covered plan, like Pecos’ plan with Reliance.

The Nichols court considered whether Reliance based its denial of Ms. Nichols’ claim on substantial evidence.  The court responded in the negative, finding that it was unreasonable for a vocational expert to define occupational duties by relying exclusively on a single Dictionary of Occupational Titles description that does not refer to important job duties.

The court also considered whether Reliance had a conflict of interest.  As Reliance admitted, it “potentially benefits from every denied claim,” and therefore was operating under a conflict of interest.  Id. at *5.  The Supreme Court has held that, when an insurer is “operating under a conflict of interest,” that conflict “must be weighed as a factor in determining whether there is an abuse of discretion.”  Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Glenn, 554 U.S. 105, 117 (2008) (emphasis added).  Such circumstances include when there is evidence that an insurer has a “history of biased claims administration.”  Id.  The question turned, however, to how much weight the court should give to Reliance’s conflict of interest.  Glenn held that this evidence “can take many forms,” and “may be shown by a pattern or practice of unreasonably denying meritorious claims.”  Id. at 123.

The court considered an approach delineated by the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Radford Trust v. First Unum Life Ins. Co. of Am., 321 F.Supp.2d 226, 247 (D. Mass. 2004), which revealed a disturbing pattern of erroneous and arbitrary benefits denials, bad faith contract misinterpretations, and other unscrupulous tactics.  

In its review addressing Reliance’s behavior in disability cases, the court found over 100 opinions in the last 21 years criticizing Reliance’s disability decisions, including over 60 opinions reversing a decision as an abuse of discretion or as arbitrary and capricious.  The court found that judges describe the behavior underlying Reliance’s claims administration as “arbitrary,” “blind,” “conclusory,” “extreme,” “flawed,” “fraught,” “illogical,” “inadequate,” “inappropriate,” “incomplete,” “indifferent,” “lax,” “misguided,” “opportunisti[c],” “precursory,” “questionable,” “remarkable,” “selective,” “self-serving,” “skewed,” “tainted,” “troubling,” “unfair,” “unreasonable,” and “unreliable.” Nichols, 2018 WL 3213618 at *7.

The court noted these opinions revealed that Reliance takes a range of extraordinary steps to deny claims for disability benefits.  Reliance makes “unreasonable” interpretations of benefit plan language, going so far as to “misconstru[e] the concept of occupational disability.”  Reliance “selectively interpret[s]” evidence so it can “opportunistically deny [a] claim” for “selfserving reasons,” creating a “skewed administrative record discounting all of the substantial evidence of … disability.”  Reliance’s denials are “overwhelmingly outweighed by evidence to the contrary,” “fraught with procedural irregularities,” and “blind or indifferent.” Those denials “rel[y] upon mere assumptions” and “demonstrate a pattern of arbitrary and capricious decision making.”  Reliance uses “obfuscation and delay tactics,” “fail[s] to engage in ongoing communications with [claimants] to keep [them] informed of the process,” makes “misstatement[s]” to claimants, “miscalculate[s] the amount owed,” and generally exhibits behavior that “reeks of bad faith.”  Reliance “regularly retain[s]” experts with “an incentive to [make] outcomes in [their] favor,” and uses expert reports that “betray a palpable bias in favor of rejecting the claim.” Despite being “[put] on notice of this bias issue” by “prior judicial criticism,” Reliance still tells courts that “it does not choose … third-party contractor[s] based on the outcomes.”  Courts often conclude that Reliance’s denials are “greatly impacted” by “self-interest,” making it “clear that Reliance put[s] its own financial interest above its fiduciary duty.” Id.

The court went on to criticize the way Reliance used the Department of Labor’s Dictionary of Occupational Titles to ignore the actual duties of a claimant’s job.  Further, the court criticized the vocational expert involved in Ms. Nichols’ appeal for her cursory methodology and paper reviews of claimant files. Ultimately, the court held that Reliance’s long past of biased and wrongful claims denials supported the court’s finding that the decision to deny Ms. Nichols’ claim was an abuse of discretion.  Further, in deciding to award attorney’s fees to Ms. Nichols, the court found that Reliance had a severe degree of culpability and hoped that such an award would have some deterrent effect on Reliance and other insurers.

Conclusion

Opinions like Nichols give hope to victims of wrongful claim denials that the courts will seek justice in viewing the actions of insurance companies.  Nichols highlights the inherent conflict of interest between insurance companies and insureds, as insurance companies decide when claimants receive benefits, and at the same time, benefit financially when benefit claims are denied.  While Reliance was singled out by the court’s opinion, denials like these by insurance companies are a logical result of situations where “foxes guard the henhouse.” Hopefully this opinion evidences a trend of scrutiny toward insurance companies that also act as plan administrators.

Determining whether an insurance company wrongfully denied a benefit claim is a difficult task for most insureds.  A claim denial can be an especially traumatic experience when an insured expects a life and disability insurance company like Reliance to provide benefits in a time of need.  McKennon Law Group PC has extensive experience determining whether an insurer improperly denied a life, health or disability insurance claim. If you believe your insurer improperly denied your life, health or disability insurance claim, call us for a free consultation.