DISCLAIMER: Any unofficial case summaries below are prepared by the clerk's office
as a courtesy to the reader. They are not part of the opinion of the court.
161714P.pdf 05/08/2017 Lisa Jones v. Aetna Life Insurance Company
U.S. Court of Appeals Case No: 16-1714
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri - St. Louis
[PUBLISHED] [Benton, Author, with Smith, Chief Judge, and Wollman, Circuit
Judge]
Civil case - ERISA. This court's cases conflict about whether a plan
participant or beneficiary bringing a Section 1132(a)(1)(B) claim to
recover benefits due her under the terms of the plan may also bring a
Section 1132(a)(3) claim to obtain benefits as other appropriate equitable
relief for a breach of fiduciary duty by a plan administrator; the two
claims assert different theories of liability and a plan participant or
benefit can file an action raising both claims; as a result, the district
court erred in dismissing plaintiff's Section 1132(a)(3) claim, and the
dismissal is reversed; with respect to the district court's order granting
defendant summary judgment on plaintiff's Section 1132(a)(1)(B) claim, the
plan's determination that plaintiff was not disabled was not unreasonable
and the summary judgment is affirmed. Reversed in part, affirmed in part
and remanded for further proceedings.