Opinion ID: 3011590
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sufficiency of the Request

Text: As we noted in Bruch v. Firestone Tire and Rubber Co., 828 F.2d 134, 153 (3d Cir. 1987), ERISA's legislative history makes clear that Congress intended the information-producing provisions to enable claimants to make their own decisions on how best to enforce their rights. We conclude that this objective will be best served by a rule that a representation by an attorney that he is making a request on behalf of a participant or beneficiary triggers the duty to respond under S 1024(b)(4) when the administrator has no reason to question the attorney's authority. In the rare case where the administrator has reason to question that authority, it can respond by requesting further evidence. The objective of the statute would be ill served, however, by permitting administrators to refuse to respond with no indication that authority is even an issue. We believe the facts of this case forcefully compel that conclusion. T&B has asked that we defer to the interpretation of S 1024(b)(4) that it finds in the Department of Labor's Advisory Opinion Letter 82-021A. That letter addressed a request for documents by a non-attorney third party. In that context, the Department gave the following advice: [I]f information is required to be furnished to a participant or beneficiary under section 104(b)(4)[29 U.S.C. S 1024(b)(4)], the information must also be furnished to a third party where the participant or beneficiary has authorized in writing the release of the information to such third party. Absent such authorization, it is the Department's view that a plan is not required by section 104 of ERISA to provide such information to persons who are neither participants nor beneficiaries. See Bartling v. Fruehauf Corp., 29 F.3d 1062, 1072 (6th Cir. 1994). While we agree with this advice as applied to nonattorney third parties, we believe an attorney's representation regarding the authority conferred upon him or her by the client adds a material factor not present in the situation the Department was addressing. The law has traditionally accepted such representations in the absence 16 of reason to question them,5 and the statutory objective behind S 1024(b)(4) counsels in favor of accepting them here. For this reason, we respectfully disagree with the conclusion reached by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Bartling. See Moothart v. Bell, 21 F.3d 1499, 1503-04 (10th Cir. 1994) (recognizing an attorney's letter similar in all material respects to that of Mrs. Daniels' attorney as constituting a request under the statute and triggering a duty to respond).