from council like it's mr have ways of us yes we've attempted to contact their office call his personal cell phone and text his personal cell phone ok thank you i think  appropriate if the th tee pension benefit plan councils here to let them argue and i will decide if we get a later request for a supplemental response will deal with that day so why don't we proceed with the strict case thank you i agree with that search pool and so do i and we've been unable to reach council or some other representative and so therefore the court will proceed to to hear from pelley and for appellate we have susan  have please the court my name is susan pangborn i am representing eighteen t pensions and the issue in this case is whether the district court properly determined that the eighteen t plan administrator did not abuse its discretion when it found that mr penn mr strickland was no longer totally disabled within the meaning of the pension to make claims determinations and interpret the terms of the plan the review of the plan administrator decisions is an abuse of discretion and under the abuse of discretion standard any reasonable basis that supports administrators decision means there is no abuse of discretion and here the certainly was a reasonable basis for how the plan administrator acted one of the issues that mr strickland raised in his brief was whether there was a conflict of interest and he conceded that there was no structural conflict of interest which occurred when the funding of the plan and the plan administrator are the same entities here the plan  have discovery to see if he could come up with some evidence of of a conflict of interest and basically what he did was a fishing expedition and that is improper and in fact if you look at the administrative record here or it's very clear that there was no bias mr strickland had previously been awarded short term disability benefits and long term disability benefits under a different eighty into the plan when he was no longer qualified for those long term disability benefits he elected to take benefits under the pension plan so under the pension plan if he meets certain requirements including showing that he is totally disabled as defined by the plan he's entitled to pension disability benefit of note obtaining pension disability benefits is completely separate from pension benefits which are not affected so when mr stricklin hit the time under the planet which he qualifies for pension benefit this denial of under his plan so i believe he could in fact take pension benefits now but because he has not had the modified rule of seventy five dollars those benefits would be lessened i mean he could take a smaller benefit amount i don't recall his exact age and whether i think within the next few years i want to say that three years or so to the best  my recollection he will hit the modified will to get the full pension benefit and another question i had is because of what happened here in his state or two to deliver because his medical record was this is only opportunity to do so well i'd like to get i mean and in six months or a year could you make another application of this or was this it and therefore this is a one shot in terms of the pension disability benefits this was it under the terms that that has been at the plant has been interpreted the plan administrator you have to st qualify for pension disability benefits when you are employed he's no longer employed and therefore there's no mechanism for starting the pension disability benefits again so it would be the same as for example if an individual who qualified for an eighty n t pension left a t n t did not yet apply for pension benefits but during that time period before he was eligible for pension benefits he became disabled it's a reasonable i believe interpretation of the plan and because it is reasonable so a plan administrator is determination should be here in terms of how mr stricklin was treated i believe that the administrative record clearly shows that he was told many times he needed to provide the documents so to the extent that initially he had some confusion about whether he had to get the documents because it was a different procedure and under long term disability the record is replete with numerous phone calls communications to mr stricklin telling him it was his obligation to get the records the the administrators to a sponte a granted extension to enable him so even though the records were st requested and in december the final decision wasn't rendered until the end of april st of march and during that time it granted numerous extensions for him to get the records and quite simply he didn't do it and did did your companies have a sorry i think company did the plan administrator here have access to all of the prior medical records of this district because it appears rather well documented that over the previous several years that mr strickland did have a disabling type of condition and i'm not making any kind of medical assessment i just it just seems like he had been eligible for a number of years and there may have been a likelihood that he is still disabled and is there any obligation on the planet minister to review those documents and make those assessments or is it just because he failed to give the additional or updated medical records that's enough well st he was under two different disability plan he in fact started pension disability benefits when he no longer met the publication's for long term disability benefit he was told in the very st correspondence to him telling him that he qualified for pension disability benefits that it would be reviewed periodic lee and that he must stay under the care of a physician so i'm not a doctor either and i don't want to guess whether he had some sort of of of disability and if we'd had the records and in looking at the other records it was clear when i look at the other records i don't necessarily think it's clear and i do it's reasonable for the plan administrator to say we need you to provide updates we need to make sure that you remain totally disabled the planned stay that claimants must provide the information that's requested and mr strickland did not do so i mean the plan has an obligation not only to mr strickland but the plan has an obligation to a fiduciary obligation to others who obtain benefits under the plan so when it follows its procedures when it lets him know from the very beginning this is what we need to ensure that you meet this definition and he doesn't provide it but a call records from from way back i don't think it i don't think it's an abuse of discretion for the plan administrator to decide we have to have updated record security administration is not necessarily fatal to a decision tonight in benefits and mr strickland makes that argument here when the plan relied on other evidence to reach its its conclusion and wanted to just ask you why couldn't this pain force is the other evidence that the plan relied on here just a lack of updated information or any other medical explanation or evidence that was in the record so st of all i would say with regard to montoro where there was in fact a structural conflict of interest the court did address and also in that case the long term disability benefits being received by the plaintiffs and m information submitted for a year and again at the very beginning he was told that he was going to have to say under doctor's care and that there would be periodic checks to ensure and he was told throughout the process if you don't provide us with the records you know your claim will be deny and he simply didn't a parent take it i don't want to say he didn't take it seriously but he didn't provide the records this is probably more of a practical question it appears that at least part of what happened here is that mr  strickland was a custom from the time he was out of the short term and long term disability plan benefits that records were being sent electronically perhaps to the then a straight and what happened here is the provider your medical whatever they're called has this policy of not sending records to regulate to administrative the beneficiary plan participants has to pick them up just wondering to the artist with the administrator ever just reach out directly to the medical provider i mean it's pretty confusing for you know participants and these big medical providers have a lot of plan requires the administrator to do that but is there any indication that the administrator that reached out at all to so even though previously the administrator mr strickland claims under long term disability reached out to get medical records here mr fickleness repeatedly told he needed to get them so even if he had a misunderstanding at the beginning i don't think by the time that at least the was denied there was that misunderstanding with regard to john mayer the plan did not reach out to john miller and request the records what the plan the appeal specialist did which they discussed the john muir letter and that they didn't have the records and that he needed to get the records that he has say in contact the plan administrator followed it began with mr strickland and said please return our call within two days ask on that call on that message because she was on able to reach him directly whether he needed additional time to told the period for the decision to be made and they never heard from mr stric submitted them correct i guess that's just too little too late under the terms of the of the plan which goes to just move us earlier questions it exactly there's no conflict of interest here even so there would be abuse of discretion standard i mean mr strickland i think the record shows that mr strickland after the appeal was denied indicated to the plan administrator that john muir would release the records because he had paid his bill now certainly if he'd raise that concern  he probably would have got more time etc but but again the question comes back to whether the plan acted if there was a reasonable basis and it's not unreasonable under the plan for there to be interpretation to require consistent with the plan medical records and to follow the process and and make the decision that mr strickland simply had not will communicate with