Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 122.0

524us1$75M 02-18-99 19:35:21 PAGES OPINPGT

Cite as: 524 U. S. 74 (1998)

77

Opinion of the Court

because on the date of his election he was already covered
by another group health plan, through his wife’s employer.
Geissal then brought this suit against Moore, the Group
Beneﬁt Plan of Moore Medical Group, Herbert Walker (an
administrator of the plan), and Sedgwick Lowndes (another
administrator) (collectively, Moore).1 Geissal charged Moore
with violating COBRA by renouncing an obligation to pro-
vide continuing health beneﬁts coverage (Count I); he fur-
ther claimed that Moore was estopped to deny him continu-
ation coverage because it had misled him to think that he
was entitled to COBRA coverage (Count II), that Moore’s
misrepresentation amounted to a waiver of any right to as-
sert a reading of the plan provisions that would deprive him
of continuation coverage (Count III), and, ﬁnally, that Walker
had violated COBRA by failing to provide him with certain
plan documents (Count IV).

After limited discovery, Geissal moved for partial sum-
mary judgment on Counts I and II of the complaint. He
argued that Moore’s reliance upon 29 U. S. C. § 1162(2)(D)(i)
as authority to deny him COBRA continuation coverage was
misplaced. Although that subsection provides that an em-
ployer may cancel COBRA continuation coverage as of “[t]he
date on which the qualiﬁed beneﬁciary ﬁrst becomes, after
the date of the election . . . covered under any other group
health plan (as an employee or otherwise),” Geissal was ﬁrst
covered under the TWA plan before he elected COBRA
continuation coverage, not after.
In any event, Geissal
maintained, Moore was estopped to deny him health beneﬁts,
because he had detrimentally relied upon its assurances that
he was entitled to them. While the summary judgment
motion was pending, Geissal died of cancer, and petitioner
Bonnie Geissal, his wife and personal representative of his
estate, replaced him as plaintiff.

1 On November 8, 1994, the District Court granted the plaintiff ’s motion

to dismiss Lowndes without prejudice.