Tennessee Disability and Life Insurance Blog
In our firm’s experience, administrators of ERISA plans (“insurers”) are quick to disregard subjective conditions when evaluating individual claims for long-term disability benefits. Although conditions like chronic pain, stress and fatigue can make it impossible for people to work a full-time job, insurers will regularly discount medical evidence that cannot be measured by an X-Ray, MRI, blood test or other objective measurements. There is good news for claimants, however. In the Sixth Circuit, which includes the federal district courts in Tennessee, courts have repeatedly stated that insurers cannot ignore subjective evidence in support of a disability claim−unless the policy at issue allows them to do so.
For example, in Evans v. Unumprovident Corp. (6th Cir.2006), a claimant applied for long-term disability benefits on the basis that her epileptic seizures prevented her from working at her job as a nursing home administrator. Her treating physician stated that the stress from her job led to the severity and frequency of her seizures. While on medical leave, the claimant’s condition improved. As a result, her treating physician determined that it would be in her best interest not to return to work.
However, the insurer denied the claim finding it unreasonable for the claimant’s physician to opine that a return to work would exacerbate the claimant’s condition. In reaching this decision, the insurer relied heavily on its own physician’s review of the claimant’s medical records, in which that reviewing physician determined that the impact of stress on the claimant’s condition was entirely self-reported and had not been corroborated by medical studies.
Finding that the insurer’s decision was arbitrary and capricious, the Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court’s re-instatement of disability benefits. It also affirmed the district court’s award of past-due benefits and attorney’s fees. In explaining its ruling, the court observed that, while the insurer’s physicians described the plaintiff’s stress as “unverifiable,” her disability policy “does not state that self-reported occurrences are to be accorded lesser significance when considering whether a person is able to work.”