Opinion
Civil Action No. 04-1432 SECTION "A" (2).
January 21, 2005
Before the Court is a Motion to Review Magistrate's Order (Rec. Doc. 18) filed by plaintiff, Mary K. Miles. Defendant, AIG Life Insurance Company, opposes the motion. The motion, set for hearing on January 26, 2005, is before the Court on the briefs without oral argument. For the reasons that follow the motion is DENIED.
I. BACKGROUND
Plaintiff brought this suit under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act ("ERISA"), 29 U.S.C. § 1001, et seq. to recover accidental death benefits under a group policy offered to employees of Dow Chemical Company. Plaintiff's late husband, Bruce Miles, was an employee of Dow Chemical and AIG Life Insurance Company ("AIG"), the defendant herein, underwrote and administered the policy. On August 23, 2002, Mr. Miles died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Prior to his death Mr. Miles had been taking the antidepressant drug Zoloft.
Plaintiff filed a claim for accidental death benefits with AIG. Plaintiff asserted that her husband's death was the result of his reaction to Zoloft and was therefore "accidental." AIG concluded that Mr. Miles had intentionally committed suicide. Given that the policy specifically excludes coverage for losses resulting from "[s]uicide or any intentionally self-inflicted injury," AIG denied the claim for benefits. (Exh. B at 8). Plaintiff then filed the instant suit. On October 22, 2004, the Court denied a motion on behalf of Plaintiff in which she sought a ruling that this Court's review of the administrator's decision to deny benefits would be on a de novo basis. The Court explained that the determination that Mr. Miles acted intentionally in taking his own life is a factual one which must be accorded deference under the clear law of this Circuit. (Rec. Doc. 11 at 6-7).
Plaintiff subsequently sought discovery "aimed at producing admissible evidence to show the district court the degree of this defendant's conflict of interest." (Pla. Memo at 1). The assigned magistrate judge denied Plaintiff's motion to compel noting that the binding law of this Circuit as explained inVega v. National Life Insurance Services, Inc., 188 F.3d 287 (5th Cir. 1999), confines the district court's review of a denial of ERISA benefits to the administrative record with two limited exceptions, neither of which are applicable to this case. (Rec. Doc. 17). Plaintiff seeks review of that order.
II. DISCUSSION
1. The Parties' Contentions
Plaintiff asserts that the magistrate judge gave too narrow an interpretation to Vega, supra. Plaintiff argues that the language used by the Fifth Circuit in Vega demonstrates that the Fifth Circuit anticipated that evidence regarding the administrator's degree of conflict would be admissible in the district court.
In opposition, AIG argues that Plaintiff's motion is untimely under the Federal Rules because it was not filed within ten days of entry. AIG also argues that the magistrate judge correctly applied the law of this Circuit in denying Plaintiff's motion to compel.
2. Law and Analysis
A motion to review a non-dispositive ruling by a magistrate judge must be filed within ten days after a party is served with a copy of the ruling. Fed.R.Civ.Pro. 72(a). Failure to file a timely objection precludes the aggrieved party from thereafter assigning as error a defect in the magistrate judges's order.Id. The magistrate judge's order denying Plaintiff's motion to compel was entered on December 8, 2004. Plaintiff's motion for review was not filed until January 5, 2005. The motion is clearly untimely under the Federal Rules.
However, if the motion had been timely filed, the Court would have denied it nonetheless because the degree of AIG's conflict is not in dispute in this case. AIG concedes that it was responsible for making both the claims determination and paying the loss, if any. (AIG Memo at 2). As noted by Judge Barbier in a case very similar to this one, "the administrator and the insurer were 100% aligned" so the degree of conflict could not be greater. Letter v. Unumprovident Corp., No. 02-2694, 2004 WL 242260, at *2 (E.D. La. Feb. 5, 2004). Therefore, "no further inquiry into the `degree of conflict' is necessary." Id. In contrast, the Vega court had reason to point out the lack of evidence regarding the degree of conflict in that case because the administrator was a wholly-owned subsidiary of the insurer. Ostensibly, the administrator and insurer had a purely contractual relationship but the Fifth Circuit questioned whether the parent corporation exercised control over the day-to-day decisions of the subsidiary. Id. at 301. With only a minimal basis for conflict, the plaintiffs could only get the benefit of a "modicum less deference" owed to the administrator's decision.Id.
Again, in this case there is no dispute regarding the degree of conflict because AIG concedes that it was both plan administrator and insurer. Thus, the fact that AIG and the insurer were 100 percent aligned is a factor that the Court will consider when determining if AIG abused its discretion in denying the claim for benefits. Under these facts, the additional evidence that Plaintiff seeks to obtain would not be admissible in this proceeding.
Accordingly;
IT IS ORDERED that the Motion to Review Magistrate's Order (Rec. Doc. 18) filed by plaintiff Mary K. Miles should be and is hereby DENIED.