Opinion ID: 152240
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Social Security Determination

Text: The Social Security Administration determined that Holmstrom was completely disabled and awarded disability benefits. As mentioned above, the Social Security standard for total disability is more stringent than the plan's standard for any-occupation disability at issue here. Moreover, it was MetLife that insisted that Holmstrom apply for Social Security benefits. As a result, MetLife received a benefit from the Social Security determination that she was disabled, but then failed to consider that determination when it terminated benefits. [13] This issue was an important factor in the Supreme Court's analysis in Glenn. Approving the Sixth Circuit's analysis, the Glenn Court stated: In particular, the [circuit] court found questionable the fact that MetLife had encouraged Glenn to argue to the Social Security Administration that she could do no work, received the bulk of the benefits of her success in doing so . . . and then ignored the agency's finding in concluding that Glenn could in fact do sedentary work. This course of events was not only an important factor in its own right . . . but also would have justified the court in giving more weight to the conflict (because MetLife's seemingly inconsistent positions were both financially advantageous). Glenn, 128 S.Ct. at 2352 (citations omitted); see also Raybourne, 576 F.3d at 450 (after Glenn, [the administrator]'s advocacy of a disability finding before the SSA should have been treated as a serious concern for the court to consider) (internal quotations omitted); Ladd v. ITT Corp., 148 F.3d 753, 756 (7th Cir.1998) (reversing denial of benefits in part because administrator supported claimant's efforts to demonstrate total disability to the Social Security Administration, then denied claimant was totally disabled even though her condition had not improved). An administrator is not forever bound by a Social Security determination of disability, but an administrator's failure to consider the determination in making its own benefit decisions suggests arbitrary decisionmaking. Glenn, 128 S.Ct. at 2352. This is especially so when the Social Security determination was made under a similar or more stringent disability definition, as it was here. In its denial letters, MetLife never stated why it disagreed with the Social Security determination; rather, it stated only that Black & Decker Disability Plan v. Nord, 538 U.S. 822, 123 S.Ct. 1965, 155 L.Ed.2d 1034 (2003), essentially dissolved any relevance of Social Security determinations in ERISA cases. The discussion of Social Security benefits in Glenn directly rejected this flawed interpretation of Nord.