MetLife Dodges Pilots’ Smoker Designation Suit on Time Bar

MetLife escaped two commercial airline pilots’ lawsuit over 16 years of miscalculated life insurance premiums after the Second Circuit found the statute of limitations had run out.

The insurer’s incorrect designation of the pilots as smokers during their policy enrollment in 2000 was a “single allegedly unlawful act,” not a continuous one, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held Thursday.

The pilots’ breach of contract claim against MetLife is “plainly” time-barred, the panel’s opinion said. The ruling affirms a lower court’s decision to toss the pilots’ four-count complaint due to New York’s six-year ...