Opinion ID: 2733246
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Seventh Circuit’s Approach

Text: As a final point, Reliastar argues that the district court’s December 2010 remand order is immediately appealable under the Seventh Circuit’s approach. The Seventh Circuit analyzes the finality of ERISA remand orders by applying the statute governing remands to the Social Security Administration, 42 U.S.C. § 405(g). See Perlman, 195 F.3d at 978-79. As explained in Perlman, pursuant to the fourth and sixth sentences of that statute, the district court may either (1) enter “a judgment affirming, modifying, or reversing the decision of the Commissioner of Social Security, with or without remanding the cause for a rehearing” (a “sentence-four remand”); or (2) remand the case to the Commissioner for the consideration of new evidence without entering a judgment as to the merits of the Commissioner’s decision (a “sentence-six remand”). Id. at 978 (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 405(g)). In accordance 21 with the Supreme Court’s decision in Sullivan v. Finkelstein, the Seventh Circuit noted that, without exception, sentence-four remands are final and appealable under § 1291, while sentence-six remands are not. Id. (citing Sullivan v. Finkelstein, 496 U.S. 617 (1990)). Under the Seventh Circuit’s approach, therefore, a district court’s remand order is immediately appealable if the district court passes judgment on the merits of an ERISA plan administrator’s decision, regardless of whether it also remands the case to the plan administrator for further proceedings. See id. at 979. Although the district court’s December 2010 order would be appealable under the Seventh Circuit’s approach because it overturned Reliastar’s decision that Mead is not eligible for “own occupation” benefits and is thus akin to a sentence-four remand, see Mead, 755 F. Supp. 2d at 542, we expressly decline to adopt the analogy between ERISA and Social Security remand orders espoused by the Seventh Circuit. The Supreme Court’s holding in Finkelstein that sentence four remands are final and immediately appealable is based on the specific language of 42 U.S.C. § 405(g), which delineates “a ‘class of orders’ that Congress [has] made ‘appealable under § 1291.’” Forney v. Apfel, 524 U.S. 266, 270 (1998) (quoting Finkelstein, 496 U.S. at 628). The class of appealable orders created by § 405(g) represents an exception that swallows the generally accepted rule that remand orders are interlocutory, rendering the vast majority of such orders appealable. See Forney, 524 U.S. at 270 (noting that neither § 405(g) nor Finkelstein permits an inference that a remand order “could be ‘final’ for purposes of appeal only when the Government seeks to appeal” or that “‘finality’ turns on . . . the availability (or lack of availability) of an avenue for appeal from the different, later, agency determination that might emerge after remand”); Shalala v. Schaefer, 509 U.S. 292, 297 22 n.2 (1993) (noting that a sentence-six remand, which is the only type of interlocutory remand under § 405(g), “may be ordered in only two situations: where the Secretary requests a remand before answering the complaint, or where new, material evidence is adduced that was for good cause not presented before the agency”). Because ERISA has no provision comparable to § 405(g), analogies to that subsection and the cases interpreting it have no bearing on the appealability of ERISA remand orders, and we decline to expand our jurisdiction by use of such analogy.7