Opinion ID: 615269
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Twigg's Application for Short-Term Disability Benefits

Text: HBC offers its employees short-term disability benefits covering seventy-five percent of their income for up to twelve weeks when they cannot work as a result of a disability. Employees have the option of purchasing supplemental benefits to cover the remaining twenty-five percent of their wages. In 2004, Twigg purchased additional short-term disability benefits through Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MetLife). When Twigg applied for FMLA leave for her bunion surgery in 2008, she also separately applied for the supplemental short-term disability benefits from MetLife. If an employee who has applied for FMLA leave is approved for short-term disability benefits by MetLife, HBC's practice is to approve FMLA leave for the same period of time that MetLife has approved short-term disability benefits. Long explained that the reason for this practice is that MetLife receives more detailed medical information from an employee's physician than does HBC. Furthermore, according to Long, MetLife was always very, very strict in how they made their determinations. So if they approved a period of time for an employee to be off on short-term disability, then it was my belief it must be legit and, therefore, we would comply with anything that [MetLife] decided. (Aple. Supp.App. at 57.)