Opinion ID: 784472
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: FEGLIA Preemption and Estoppel

Text: 66 The government makes several arguments related to FEGLIA. We will address them collectively. First, the government contends that, in enacting FEGLIA, a narrowly drawn, detailed statutory scheme for administering a federal life insurance program, Congress clearly evinced its intent that FEGLIA should be the sole and exclusive mechanism for determining and deciding all claims founded upon FEGLIA. As a result, the government asserts, FEGLIA's remedies occupy the field and bar Plaintiff from seeking relief under the FTCA. See, e.g., United States v. Demko, 385 U.S. 149, 87 S.Ct. 382, 17 L.Ed.2d 258 (1966) (holding that 18 U.S.C. § 4126's remedies for prisoners injured as a result of prison work are exclusive of FTCA remedies). Second, the government argues that, even if Connecticut law permitted Plaintiff's claim, that law would be preempted by FEGLIA. According to this contention, FEGLIA's overall structure and, particularly, its state-law supercession provision 25 manifests Congress's intent to preempt state-law tort actions for recovery of `lost' FEGLIA benefits. The government claims that [a]ny Connecticut cause of action that gives legal effect to [Muratti's] alleged intent that Plaintiff replace his nephew as the beneficiary would be inconsistent with FEGLIA and would therefore be preempted. Finally, the government asserts that [e]rroneous advice given by a Government employee to a benefits claimant cannot estop the Government from denying benefits not otherwise permitted by law. This action must fail because FEGLIA does not permit the payment of the FEGLIA benefits to Plaintiff. 67 Although these arguments vary in gloss, they fail for essentially the same reasons. Plaintiff's tort claim does not seek to function as an alternative enforcement mechanism to obtain benefits under a FEGLIA policy; nor does the claim seek to give legal effect — in any meaningful sense of that phrase — to Murratti's intent to substitute Plaintiff for his nephew as a beneficiary. 26 And, finally, Plaintiff's claim does not seek to estop the government from refusing to pay her FEGLIA benefits as though she were a proper beneficiary. 27 Quite simply, Plaintiff is not asking to be paid benefits under a FEGLIA policy; she concedes that she is not a proper beneficiary of such benefits. Indeed, that is precisely her point; her allegation is that the postal employees' negligence prevented her from becoming a proper designee under the policy. She is seeking to be compensated for that negligence. If a friend of Murratti's had undertaken to file his Change of Beneficiary form and then had failed to perform this duty, Plaintiff could sue the friend on the same negligence theory (assuming it was available under the applicable state law) as that which she is now asserting against the government. Under those circumstances, it would be clear that Plaintiff would not be seeking to recover benefits under a FEGLIA policy. And that would be so even if the policy were in some sense the measure of Plaintiff's damages. The same holds true for her suit against the allegedly negligent government employees for whose default the government chose to answer under the FTCA. 68 For these reasons, and given the government's failure to cite any authority that remotely supports its position, we reject the government's arguments based on estoppel and FEGLIA preemption.