Opinion ID: 197450
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Limits Incident to Fiduciary Discretion Under Terms of a

Text: Benefit Plan 58 With respect specifically to an issue regarding eligibility of a claimant for benefits, precedents recognize that district courts do not have expansive plenary jurisdiction to decide the merits of a claim anew if the benefit plan gives the administrator or fiduciary discretionary authority to determine eligibility for benefits or to construe the terms of the plan. Bellino v. Schlumberger Technologies, 944 F.2d 26, 29 (1st Cir.1991) (quoting Firestone, 489 U.S. at 115, 109 S.Ct. at 956). Thus, if an ERISA out-of-court decisionmaker is given some discretion, the court reviews at least some (if not all) aspects of the out-of-court decision only to determine whether that decision was arbitrary and capricious. This key point expressed in Bellino is entirely consistent with many earlier and later First Circuit decisions that recognize the authority of the court to be less deferential, or not deferential at all, of out-of-court decisions by fiduciaries to whom a benefit plan did not grant discretionary authority to decide the matter at issue. Smart v. Gillette Co. Long-Term Disability Plan, 70 F.3d 173, 181 (1st Cir.1995) (In ERISA cases ... court should scrutinize an ostensible waiver with care in order to ensure that it reflects the purposeful relinquishment of an employee's rights.); Hughes v. Boston Mut. Life Ins. Co., 26 F.3d 264, 267 (1st Cir.1994) (Where, as here, the administrator of an ERISA-regulated plan does not allege that it has discretion under the plan to interpret the terms of the insurance policy, judicial review of a denial of benefits entails no deference to the administrator's explanation of the plan....); Diaz, 13 F.3d at 456-58 (arbitrary and capricious standard of review applied to trustee rules promulgated pursuant to broad, discretionary authority granted to the trustee in the trust instrument); Rodriguez-Abreu v. Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A., 986 F.2d 580, 583-84 (1st Cir.1993) (de novo standard properly applied where the relevant plan document did not grant discretionary authority to the Plan Administrator and the Named Fiduciaries did not expressly delegate their discretionary authority to the Plan administrator); Allen v. Adage, Inc., 967 F.2d 695, 697-98 (1st Cir.1992) (where nothing in the Plan indicates that another approach is to be used, it is appropriate for a reviewing court to afford de novo review). 59