Hankins v. Standard Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 14 May 2012
• Docket Number: No. 11–3495.,11–3495.
• Citation: 677 F.3d 830
• Parties: Bobby Gene HANKINS, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. STANDARD INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

677 F.3d 830

Bobby Gene HANKINS, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.STANDARD INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant–Appellee.

No. 11–3495.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: April 18, 2012.Filed: May 14, 2012.

John Andrew Ellis, argued, Ted G. Boswell, on the brief, Bryant, AR, for appellant.

Richard Joseph Pautler, argued, St. Louis, MO, for appellee.

Before RILEY, Chief Judge, MURPHY and MELLOY, Circuit Judges.

MELLOY, Circuit Judge.

Bobby Gene Hankins was denied long-term disability benefits by Standard Insurance Company. Hankins sought review of Standard's determination under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq. The district court ¹ granted Standard's motion for summary judgment, finding Standard did not abuse its discretion. We affirm.

I.

Beginning in April 2002, Hankins served as the Director of Commercial Security Operations at Stephens Investment Holdings, LLC. The parties disagree as to how best to characterize the job—Standard determined it was primarily a managerial position, whereas Hankins likens it to being a member of a “private police force”—however there is no genuine dispute over the actual duties of the job. Stephens generally describes the position as requiring Hankins:

To plan, organize, direct and control the security policies, procedures and programs for all commercial locations in the area of facility security in order to ensure the safety and security of employees and assets; to provide investigation and other security services as required in this capacity.

Stephens further lists eighteen “Essential Duties and Responsibilities” for the position. Although many of those duties are purely administrative or supervisory, the list does include potentially physical requirements such as: “[a]ssist[ing] in responding to all emergency and crisis situations as necessary, including: transporting and assisting incapacitated persons, interceding in physical disturbances, subduing violent individuals, and assisting victims of offenses.”

To ensure his fitness for these physical requirements, Hankins had to undergo periodic physical evaluations that tested, inter alia, his ability to run or walk one-and- a-half miles in under sixteen minutes, run 300 meters in under sixty-six seconds, and jump at least fifteen-and-a-half inches. While training for these physical evaluations on October 15, 2009, Hankins injured his hamstring. After a series of exams, his treating physician concluded that Hankins was unlikely to ever perform the running and jumping requirements for his evaluations, although he was capable of performing sedentary or light work. Because Hankins was unable to complete his physical evaluations, Stephens terminated him from his position. On February 8, 2010, Hankins submitted a claim for disability benefits.

Stephens sponsored an employee insurance policy administered by Standard. The Standard policy provided benefits to employees who were disabled from performing their “Own Occupation.” The policy stated that Standard had “full and exclusive authority to control and manage the Group Policy, to administer claims, and to interpret the Group Policy and resolve all questions arising in the administration, interpretation, and application of the Group Policy.” The policy also offered the following pertinent definitions:

Own Occupation means any employment, business, trade, profession, calling or vocation that involves Material Duties of the same general character as the occupation you are regularly performing for your Employer when Disability begins. In determining your Own Occupation, we are not limited to looking at the way you perform your job for your Employer, but we may also look at the way the occupation is generally performed in the national economy....

Material duties means the essential tasks, functions and operations, and the skills, abilities, knowledge, training and experience, generally required by employers from those engaged in a particular occupation that cannot be reasonably modified or omitted....

On March 9, 2010, Standard's vocational case manager, Karol Paquette, submitted a report on Hankins's “Own Occupation Review.” Paquette studied Arkansas law regarding the licensing requirement for private security personnel as well as the arresting authority of those private security personnel. Paquette compared Hankins's job description to those contained in the Department of Labor's Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) and noted that, although Hankins's actual job duties included some physical demands, those physical demands were not common in the national economy. She determined that the occupational listing in the DOT that most closely resembled Hankins's job was “Security Manager (Alternate Title) Any Industry,” which the DOT characterized as a sedentary occupation. Relying on Paquette's report, Standard determined Hankins was not disabled and denied Hankins's claim on April 8, 2010.

On December 14, 2010, Hankins requested reconsideration of Standard's denial. Hankins submitted a report by a vocational consultant, Robert White, who opined that Hankins's job at Stephens was similar to law-enforcement type security work. By contrast, White characterized the DOT security description used by Standard as only applying to factory/warehouse/industrial type security work. White offered two other occupational titles from the DOT which he believed more closely resembled Hankins's actual job: Public Safety Officer and Deputy Police Chief.² White also criticized Standard's determination for not taking into account Hankins's age, which he explained was a significant vocational factor in social security benefit determinations.

On March 15, 2011, Standard upheld its previous denial of disability benefits. Standard relied upon a second report by Paquette that contested White's conclusions. Paquette noted that White had performed a “transferrable skills analysis” under social security law. She explained that such an analysis was irrelevant under Standard's “Own Occupation” analysis because Standard's determination was governed by the language of the policy, not social security law. Paquette also disputed White's suggestion that occupational titles for government service were more appropriate for Hankins's job, reiterating the limited arrest authority for private security personnel that she analyzed in her previous report. Paquette asserted that White's conclusions were based only on the few physical requirements in Hankins's job responsibilities, while her previous determination had been based on an occupational title that best reflected Hankins's job in its entirety. Paquette noted that, on the whole, Hankins's job duties were consistent with a high level managerial job and that she believed her initial report to be correct.

Hankins brought suit in federal court to overturn Standard's denial of benefits. On November 1, 2011, the district court ruled on cross summary judgment motions, concluding that Standard's determination was reasonable and not an abuse of discretion. Hankins appeals.

II.

We review a district court's grant of summary judgment de novo. Hackett v. Standard Ins. Co., 559 F.3d 825, 829 (8th Cir.2009). Where an ERISA plan gives the administrator discretionary power to construe ambiguous terms or make eligibility determinations, the administrator's decision is reviewed for an abuse of discretion. King v. Hartford Life and Acc. Ins. Co., 414 F.3d 994, 998–99 (8th Cir.2005) (en banc). In reviewing whether administrators have abused their discretion, we generally ask:

whether their interpretation is consistent with the goals of the Plan, whether their interpretation renders any language in the Plan meaningless or internally inconsistent, whether their interpretation conflicts with the substantive or procedural requirements of the ERISA statute, whether they have interpreted the words at issue consistently, and whether their interpretation is contrary to the clear language of the Plan.

Finley v. Special Agents Mut. Benefit Ass'n, Inc., 957 F.2d 617, 621 (8th Cir.1992). However, “[t]he dispositive principle remains ... that where plan fiduciaries have offered a ‘reasonable interpretation’ of disputed provisions, courts may not replace [it] with an interpretation of their own—and therefore cannot disturb as an ‘abuse of discretion’ the challenged benefits determination.” King, 414 F.3d at 999 (internal citations omitted).

Hankins argues that because the policy does not use the word “discretion,” it cannot have granted Standard discretionary power to construe ambiguous terms. Hankins believes that the court should have applied a de novo review to the administrator's disability determination. The policy's language and our court's precedent do not support Hankins's argument. Although the Eight Circuit requires “explicit discretion-granting language” to appear in a policy in order to trigger a deferential standard of review, see McKeehan v. Cigna Life Ins. Co., 344 F.3d 789, 793 (8th Cir.2003), Hankins points to no case that says the policy must use the word “discretion.” This court has held that policy language granting the administrator sole responsibility for the administration and interpretation of the plan gives discretionary authority that triggers deferential review. Kennedy v. Georgia–Pacific Corp., 31 F.3d 606, 609 (8th Cir.1994). We conclude that Standard's policy language reserving the power to “resolve all questions ... [of] interpretation” indicates the administrator has discretionary power to construe ambiguous terms.³ Thus, our standard of review is for abuse of discretion.

Our abuse of discretion review is guided by the Finley factors cited above; however, the only challenge Hankins advances on appeal is that...