Opinion ID: 176786
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: CLAIMS Life Insurance

Text: If you die, your beneficiary will be furnished a claim form.... When the required claim papers are received and approved by The Hartford, the Amount of Life Insurance on your life will be paid.       Time Payment of Claims .... Payment for loss of life will be made: (1) according to the beneficiary designation in effect when payment is made, or, if none is in effect; (2) to your estate. In applying these plan documents, the 2000 divorce decree was irrelevant because RoJane never signed and submitted a beneficiary designation form eliminating Alan as a designated beneficiary, in accordance with that decree, to the Policyholder (Inacom) or to Hartford. The record does include a 1997 designation reducing Alan's share from sixty to forty percent of the death benefit. Though in writing and apparently in proper form, there is no evidence this designation was submitted to the Policyholder, or directly to Hartford, before the death benefit was paid. When Katherine Matschiner advised Hartford of a later designation in June 2007, Hartford asked for a copy. If the Matschiners had complied before the death benefit was paid, Hartford might well have been obliged to pay in accordance with this later designation because the Policyholder was out of business and the policy otherwise terminated. But the Matschiners did not comply, and Hartford promptly paid the claims submitted by the three beneficiaries in accordance with the only designation in its files, as the policy required. The policy expressly provided that Hartford is not liable for further payment of amounts paid under an earlier designation before it received a later designation. In these circumstances, applying the plan documents rule, summary judgment in favor of Hartford is clearly warranted. As the Supreme Court explained, [t]he plan provided an easy way for [the Matschiners] to change the designation, but for whatever reason [they] did not.... The plan administrator therefore did exactly what [29 U.S.C.] § 1104(a)(1)(D) required: the documents control .... Kennedy, 129 S.Ct. at 877 (quotation omitted). The judgment of the district court dated October 5, 2009, is reversed, including the award of attorneys' fees, and the case is remanded with instructions to enter judgment dismissing the claims against Hartford with prejudice. That will leave the Matschiners' separate claims against Alan Lewis, which may or may not have an independent basis of federal jurisdiction. If not, the district court will need to decide whether to exercise its supplemental jurisdiction or to dismiss these state law claims without prejudice. See 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c); cf. Hall v. Hall, 2009 WL 2837720 (E.D.Pa. Sept. 3, 2009).