Published by The Pellegrin Firm January 29, 2020
In a ruling dated January 13, 2020, Judge Sarah Vance of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana sided with a claimant in a dispute over the applicability of a pre-existing condition exclusion to a long-term disability claim.
Published by The Pellegrin Firm January 5, 2019
In a ruling dated December 27, 2019, a federal district court judge affirmed The Hartford’s decision to offset a disabled Atlas Air, Inc. employee’s long-term disability benefits with Social Security Retirement benefits.
Published by The Pellegrin Firm December 17, 2019
In a recent decision dated December 4, 2019, a federal district court in Maryland returned a favorable decision for a claimant seeking long-term disability benefits for her fibromyalgia.
Published by The Pellegrin Firm December 3, 2019
Posting on social media can be dangerous if you have filed or are thinking about filing a long-term disability claim. It is now standard operating procedure among long-term disability insurers to check a claimant’s social media history in the hopes of finding anything that may contradict a claimant’s allegations of disability.
Published by the Pellegrin Firm September 28, 2019
Two recent decisions went claimants’ way in preexisting condition denial cancer cases.
Published by The Pellegrin Firm August 20, 2019
In 1974, Congress passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), which granted claimants a cause of action in federal court for benefits wrongfully-denied pursuant to employer-sponsored retirement plans, disability insurance, life-insurance plans, and other various types of employer-provided benefits.
Published by The Pellegrin Firm August 13, 2019
This question is one of the “labyrinthine complexities” of ERISA law and practice, as stated by the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in last year’s decision, Manuel v. Turner Indus. Grp., L.L.C., 905 F.3d 859 (5th Cir. 2018).
Published by The Pellegrin Firm August 11, 2019
Living while receiving long-term disability benefits from an insurance company can feel stifling. If the insurance company is paying tens of thousands of dollars to a claimant yearly, it may find it cost effective to invest in surveillance – either through social media or in person – to find a reason to terminate benefits.
In the recent case of Faciane v. Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada, No. 18-30918, __F.3d__, 2019 WL 3334654 (5th Cir. July 25, 2019), the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit followed other federal courts of appeal and several district courts within the Fifth Circuit in finding that the time limit for challenging an ERISA LTD administrator’s benefit calculations in court begins upon notice of the benefit calculation.
Published by The Pellegrin Firm July 29, 2019
The relationship between Long-Term Disability benefits and Social Security Disability benefits creates a lot of confusion and concern among claimants. This relationship is the source of a great number of questions and frustrations.