ERISA Judgment Vacated Due to Wrongly Applied Standard

An ERISA judgment in favor of a plan beneficiary and against plan administrator Reliance Standard Life Insurance Co. was wiped out Tuesday by the Eighth Circuit, which said the district court used the wrong standard in finding the woman was entitled to benefits under the plan’s rules for long-term disability.

Melissa A. McIntyre, who suffers from the degenerative neurological condition Charcot-Marie-Tooth Syndrome, worked as a nurse at the Mayo Clinic Health System between 2003 and 2011, when she resigned because CMT affected her work.

For the first 24 months, McIntyre was considered “totally disabled” under the short-term disability definition of ...