Prominently Displayed, Fundamental Discrepancy In Benefits Triggered Contractual Limitations Period
Wednesday, August 21, 2019

The Fifth Circuit concluded that a plan’s three-year contractual limitations period began to accrue when a beneficiary received a letter in 2008 that prominently displayed on the first page the monthly earnings used to calculate his long term disability benefits.  The Court held that the claim was time-barred because the beneficiary failed to bring his miscalculation claim until 2017.  In so holding, the Court explained that the alleged discrepancy in monthly earnings of almost $3,000 was so large and fundamental that its effect on the beneficiary’s plan benefits was apparent, and the discrepancy was not of a type that required him “to decipher complex formulae or piece together inferences from incomplete information.”  The case is Faciane v. Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada, No. 18-30918, 2019 WL 3334654 (5th Cir. July 25, 2019).

 

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