Jennifer Collins v. UNUM Life Insurance Company
Filing
UNPUBLISHED PER CURIAM OPINION filed. Originating case number: 2:15-cv-00188-RGD-RJK. Copies to all parties and the district court. [1000112877]. [16-1636]
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UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 16-1636
JENNIFER MULLEN COLLINS,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
UNUM LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF AMERICA,
Defendant - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia, at Norfolk.
Robert G. Doumar, Senior
District Judge. (2:15-cv-00188-RGD-RJK)
Submitted:
December 20, 2016
Decided:
July 6, 2017
Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, and NIEMEYER, and HARRIS, Circuit
Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Gregory N. Stillman, Wendy C. McGraw, HUNTON & WILLIAMS LLP,
Norfolk, Virginia; Todd M. Stenerson, HUNTON & WILLIAMS, LLP,
Washington, DC, for Appellant. David E. Constine, III, Stephen
C. Piepgrass, TROUTMAN SANDERS LLP, Richmond, Virginia, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:
Former Navy SEAL David M. Collins served this country for
seventeen
years,
during
which
Afghanistan, and Kuwait.
situations,
many
of
which
Generalized
Stress
Anxiety
was
deployed
to
Iraq,
He served in dangerous and stressful
blasts from mortar fire.
Post-traumatic
he
exposed
him
to
enemy
gunfire
and
Upon retirement, he was diagnosed with
Disorder,
Major
Disorder,
Depressive
Disorder,
chronic
traumatic
and
encephalopathy (CTE), a “progressive neurodegenerative disease”
caused by “repetitive brain trauma.”
J.A. 719.
Despite seeking
treatment, Mr. Collins was found dead in the driver’s seat of
his car with a gunshot wound to his head on March 12, 2014.
The
death was ruled a suicide.
Prior
Blackbird
to
his
death,
Technologies,
Mr.
where
Collins
he
had
been
participated
working
in
an
for
employee
benefit plan that provided basic and supplemental life insurance
through
group
policies
funded
Insurance Company of America.
Jennifer
Mullen
policies.
denied
administered
by
Unum
Life
When Mr. Collins died, his widow,
applied
for
benefits
under
both
Unum granted benefits under the basic policy, but
benefits
exclusion.
Collins,
and
The
under
the
supplemental
supplemental
policy
February 2013.
2
had
policy’s
become
suicide
effective
in
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To
under
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challenge
the
the
Employee
denial,
Ms.
Retirement
U.S.C. 1132(a)(1)(B) (2012).
summary judgment.
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Collins
Income
filed
Security
this
Act.
action
See
29
Both parties filed motions for
Applying the abuse-of-discretion standard of
review, the district court affirmed the denial of benefits and
granted
summary
judgment
to
Unum.
found the suicide exclusion valid.
The
district
court
first
Then, the court ruled that
Unum reasonably interpreted the plan term “suicide” to include
sane and insane suicide and had substantial evidence to support
its conclusion that the exclusion applied.
We
“review
the
district
court’s
disposition
of
cross-
motions for summary judgment . . . de novo, viewing the facts in
the light most favorable to the non-moving party.”
Schaefer, 760 F.3d 352, 370 (4th Cir. 2014).
Bostic v.
Summary judgment
requires the moving party to show that no genuine dispute of
material fact remains and that the moving party “is entitled to
judgment as a matter of law.”
Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).
A court
should grant summary judgment unless a reasonable jury could
return
a
presented.
verdict
for
the
nonmoving
party
on
the
evidence
Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249
(1986).
Here,
the
cross-motions
for
Unum’s use of a suicide exclusion.
3
summary
judgment
concerned
Plan administrators bear the
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burden of proving an exclusion applies.
Jenkins v. Montgomery
Indus., 77 F.3d 740, 743 (4th Cir. 1996).
Where, as here, the plan grants an administrator discretion
to award a benefit, we “must review only for abuse of discretion
and
.
.
.
must
not
reasonable,
even
disturb
if
the
different conclusion.”
F.3d
231,
omitted).
235
(4th
the
court
.
.
itself
.
decision
would
if
have
it
reached
is
a
Fortier v. Principal Life Ins. Co., 666
Cir.
2012)
(internal
quotation
marks
An “administrator’s decision is reasonable if it is
the result of a deliberate, principled reasoning process and if
it is supported by substantial evidence.”
Evans v. Eaton Corp.
Long Term Disability Plan, 514 F.3d 315, 322 (4th Cir. 2008)
(internal quotation marks omitted).
Our
review
for
reasonableness
applies
to
both
a
administrator’s factual findings and plan interpretations.
plan
An
administrator’s factual findings require substantial evidence,
meaning “more than a scintilla but less than a preponderance.”
Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. v. Cherry, 326 F.3d
449, 452 (4th Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks omitted).
When
reviewing
the
administrator’s
findings
for
substantial
evidence, a court must confine its review to the administrative
record, limiting itself “to the evidence that was before the
plan administrator at the time of the decision.”
Bernstein v.
CapitalCare, Inc., 70 F.3d 783, 788 (4th Cir. 1995).
4
When an
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administrator
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interprets
a
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plan’s
terms,
the
court
does
not
construe ambiguities against the insurer who drafted the terms.
See Carden v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., 559 F.3d 256, 261 (4th Cir.
2009).
Judicial
review
for
reasonableness
also
finds
aid
in
a
nonexhaustive list of factors this court set forth in Booth v.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Assocs. Health & Welfare Plan, 201 F.3d
335, 342-43 (4th Cir. 2000).
The Booth factors include:
(1) the language of the plan; (2) the purposes and
goals of the plan; (3) the adequacy of the materials
considered to make the decision and the degree to
which they support it; (4) whether the fiduciary’s
interpretation was consistent with other provisions in
the plan and with earlier interpretations of the plan;
(5) whether the decision making process was reasoned
and
principled;
(6)
whether
the
decision
was
consistent with the procedural
and substantive
requirements of ERISA; (7) any external standard
relevant to the exercise of discretion; and (8) the
fiduciary’s motives and any conflict of interest it
may have.
Id.
On appeal, Ms. Collins argues that the district court erred
for
three
reasons,
reversible error.
but
our
review
of
the
record
reveals
no
First, Ms. Collins argues that the exclusion
violates Va. Code § 38.2-3106 (2014), which prohibits insurers
from using suicide as a defense to the payment of life insurance
benefits
unless
the
insurer
includes
“[a]n
express
provision
. . . limiting the liability of the insurer to an insured who,
whether sane or insane, dies by his own act within two years
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from the date of the policy.”
Ms. Collins argues that the
absence of the phrase “whether sane or insane” in Unum’s suicide
exclusion nullifies the exclusion.
We
conclude,
complies
with
however,
Virginia
that
law
Unum’s
because
a
exclusion
policy
sufficiently
only
needs
to
provide sufficient notice of an exclusion and its limit of two
years to comply with the statute.
See New England Mut. Life
Ins. Co. v. Mitchell, 118 F.2d 414, 417 (4th Cir. 1941) (ruling
that a valid suicide exclusion does not need to use any “magic”
words to comply with statute that governs such exclusions).
Second,
Ms.
Collins
argues
that
Unum
*
unreasonably
interpreted “suicide” to mean any non-accidental, self-inflicted
death.
include
She contends that, because the suicide exclusion did not
a
clause
specifying
that
suicide
could
be
“sane
or
insane,” the exclusion does not apply to suicides committed by
insane
persons.
Under
the
abuse-of-discretion
standard,
however, Unum only has to offer a reasonable, and not the most
reasonable,
Metro.
Life
interpretation
Ins.
Co.,
of
757
a
plan
F.3d
term.
452,
459
See
(5th
McCorkle
Cir.
v.
2014)
(explaining that abuse-of-discretion standard prohibits a court
* Because we conclude that the suicide exclusion complies
with Virginia law we need not resolve the parties’ dispute
regarding whether Unum should be allowed to alternatively
assert, for the first time on appeal, that the exclusion should
be found valid under Maine law.
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“substituting
[its]
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own,
narrower
interpretation
of
the
term [“suicide”] in place of [the administrator’s] reasonable,
yet
broader,
omitted).
“suicide”
interpretation”)
(internal
quotation
marks
Because people could reasonably understand the term
to
include
any
non-accidental,
self-inflicted
death
regardless of mental state, we defer to Unum’s interpretation.
Moreover,
courts
have
upheld
plan
administrators’
interpretations of “suicide” to include sane and insane suicide
even though the phrase “sane and insane” did not appear in the
exclusions.
McCorkle, 757 F.3d at 459; Riggs v. Metro. Life
Ins. Co., 940 F. Supp. 2d 172, 184–85 (D.N.J. 2013).
Third, under Ms. Collins’ interpretation of “suicide,” she
argues the administrative record lacks substantial evidence to
show that Mr. Collins was sane when he died.
during
Mr.
concussive
ability
to
Collins’
blasts
military
that
resist
the
service,
injured
impulse
his
to
he
brain
kill
She contends that,
experienced
and
sub-
impaired
his
Thus,
she
himself.
contends that Mr. Collins was not sane under Fourth Circuit law.
See Reinking v. Philadelphia Am. Life Ins. Co., 910 F.2d 1210,
1215 (4th Cir. 1990) (defining insanity to include someone who
suffers from “an ‘insane’ impulse that so overwhelms the will or
rational thought that the individual is unable to resist”).
Because
suicide
we
exclusion
hold
to
that
Unum
encompass
7
reasonably
insane
interpreted
suicide,
Mr.
the
Collins’
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sanity at death has no bearing on the outcome.
find
substantial
evidence
in
the
Moreover, we
administrative
record
to
support Unum’s conclusion that the suicide exclusion applied.
Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s order granting
summary judgment to Unum and denying summary judgment to Ms.
Collins.
legal
before
We dispense with oral argument because the facts and
contentions
this
court
are
adequately
and
argument
presented
would
not
in
aid
the
the
materials
decisional
process.
AFFIRMED
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