Case ID: f-appx_531/html/0126-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
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Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Jennifer JAMES, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNUM LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF AMERICA, Unum Group, fka Unum Provident Corporation, Defendants-Appellees.
    No. 12-3951-cv.
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    Aug. 27, 2013.
    Evan S. Schwartz, Quadrino & Schwartz P.C., Garden City, NY, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
    Patrick W. Begos, Begos Brown & Green LLP, Southport, CT, for Defendants-Appellees.
    PRESENT: JOSÉ A. CABRANES, PETER W. HALL, DENNY CHIN, Circuit Judges.
   SUMMARY ORDER

Plaintiff Jennifer James appeals from an order of the District Court granting summary judgment to Unum Life Insurance Company of America (“Unum”) on James’s claim for benefits under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”), 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq. “In an ERISA action, we review the district court’s grant of summary judgment based on the administrative record de novo and apply the same legal standard as the district court.” Hobson v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 574 F.3d 75, 82 (2d Cir.2009). “[Wjhere, as here, written plan documents confer upon a plan administrator the discretionary authority to determine eligibility, we will not disturb the administrator’s ultimate conclusion unless it is ‘arbitrary and capricious.’ ” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). We assume familiarity with the underlying facts and procedural history of this case.

We affirm substantially for the reasons stated in the District Court’s careful and clear Memorandum Decision and Order dated September 27, 2012. James raises a number of procedural objections to the processing of her claim, each of which was properly rejected by the District Court. To the extent that James now claims that the District Court erred by failing to take into account evidence outside of the administrative record, she has advanced no authority that supports her view. See Miller v. United Welfare Fund, 72 F.3d 1066, 1071 (2d Cir.1995) (holding that “a district court’s review under the arbitrary and capricious standard is limited to the administrative record”). Nor, for that matter, does she even make any substantial claim that any evidence in or out of the administrative record demonstrates that the Unum’s decision was not based on substantial evidence. See Durakovic v. Bldg. Serv. 32 BJ Pension Fund, 609 F.3d 133, 141 (2d Cir.2010). For these reasons, we agree with the District Court that Unum’s decision to deny James’s claim was not arbitrary or capricious.

CONCLUSION

We have reviewed the record and the parties’ arguments on appeal. For the reasons set out above, we AFFIRM the September 27, 2012 judgment of the District Court.