Arlys Williams v. Target Corporation, et al

Filing

Per Curiam OPINION filed : The district court's judment is VACATED and we REMAND this case to the district court with instructions that it REMAND the case to Hartford's plan administrator so that the record may be developed in accordance with this opinion. Decision not for publication. Ralph B. Guy , Jr., Raymond M. Kethledge and Jane Branstetter Stranch, Circuit Judges.

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NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
File Name: 14a0690n.06

FILED

No. 13-2410

Sep 04, 2014
DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

ARLYS WILLIAMS,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
TARGET CORPORATION, fka Dayton
Hudson Corp; EXECUTIVE LONG
TERM DISABILITY PLAN;
HARTFORD LIFE AND ACCIDENT
INSURANCE COMPANY,

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On Appeal from the United States
District Court for the Eastern
District of Michigan

Defendants-Appellees.
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Before: GUY, KETHLEDGE, and STRANCH, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
I.
In 1997, Plaintiff Arlys Williams was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and chronic
fatigue syndrome.

Based on this diagnosis, Williams was approved for long term

disability benefits (“LTD Benefits”) under her employer Dayton Hudson’s long term
disability plan (“Plan”). At the time, Dayton Hudson self-insured the Plan. Dayton
Hudson later became known as Target Corporation, a Defendant in this action.

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On January 1, 2010, Defendant Hartford Life and Accident Insurance Company
(“Hartford”) began insuring the Plan under a buy-out insurance policy and also began
acting as the Plan’s claims administrator. Hartford then began a review of Williams’s file
to determine whether she was still disabled under the Plan’s terms and still entitled to her
LTD Benefits.
As a part of this review, Hartford conducted an Employability Analysis Report
(“EAR”), which concluded that Williams’ ailments did not prevent her from performing
the occupation of an Accounting Clerks Supervisor. For reasons explained below, that
conclusion meant that Williams no longer met the Plan’s definition of “disability.” As a
result, Hartford terminated Williams’ LTD Benefits. Williams appealed the termination
and, after conducting a review, Hartford upheld its decision.
Williams then appealed Hartford’s termination pursuant to 29 U.S.C.
§ 1132(a)(1)(B) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”).

The

parties filed cross-motions for judgment on the administrative record and, after reviewing
the briefing and the record, the district court granted Hartford’s motion applying an
arbitrary and capricious standard of review. Williams filed this timely appeal.
The bulk of Williams’s argument on appeal claims that the district court erred in
applying an arbitrary and capricious standard of review rather than reviewing her case de
novo. We do not address Williams’s argument because, regardless of the standard of
review we apply and for the reasons described below, there is insufficient information in
the administrative record to ascertain whether Williams still met the Plan’s definition of

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“disability.” As a result, we REMAND the case so that the administrative record can be
developed further.
II.

The parties agree that for Williams’s condition to satisfy the Plan’s definition of
“disability,” it must prevent her from engaging in any occupation that would provide at
least 128% of her LTD Benefits. To satisfy this 128% requirement, a suitable alternative
job for Williams must pay her at least $3,724.80 per month. Hartford’s EAR attempts to
determine whether, based on Williams’s “current functionality, as well as [her] education,
training and work experience,” there is any occupation prevalent in the national economy
that Williams could perform that would meet the 128% wage requirement.
The EAR concluded that there was one job that met the 128% criterion:
“Supervisor, Accounting Clerks,” which the EAR indicates has a median monthly wage
of $3,908.67. According to the EAR, this number is based on the “Oasys May 2009
median wage data,” although there is no further information on how the wage data is
computed.1 The EAR does cite wage data from both the Census and the Occupational
Employment Statistics survey (“OES Survey”), although it is unclear if and how that data
affect the “Oasys May 2009 median wage data.”
The cited OES Survey data and the Census data appear to be rather broad. Both
data sets analyze the wages of “First-Line Supervisors/Managers of Office and

The EAR does make clear that the OASYS classification system “cross references an individual’s
qualifications profile with 12,741 occupations classified by the U.S. Department of Labor in the 1991
Dictionary of Occupational Titles.” Although this is helpful to understand the job matching and
classification system, it does not identify how the wage data is actually computed.
1

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As indicated in the EAR, that occupational classification

includes 106 occupational titles, one of which is “Supervisor, Accounting Clerks.”
Neither data set describes the average wage for the specific occupation of “Supervisor,
Accounting Clerks.” To complicate matters, the cited OES Survey data and the Census
data paint significantly different pictures of the average wages for that occupational
classification; the Census data indicate monthly median wages that fall short of the
128% wage requirement while the OES Survey data indicate a monthly wage that could
exceed the 128% wage requirement.
We are left with more questions than answers. The parties and the district court
assumed that the EAR’s $3,908.67 wage estimate was based on Department of Labor
data. This assumption may be correct but there is no clear evidence in the administrative
record that supports it or otherwise explains how OASYS computed its wage data.
Specifically, even if OASYS used Department of Labor data, we do not know what data
was used. Did OASYS simply look at wage data for the occupational classification of
“First-Line Supervisors/Managers of Office and Administrative Support” (such as the
data cited in the EAR) or did it consider wage data that was specific to the occupational
title “Supervisor, Accounting Clerks”?
Williams asks us to accept wage data from an internet article (which cites
CareerBuilders.com) estimating the average monthly salary for an Accounting Clerks
Supervisor at $3,453 – which is more than $250 short of the 128% monthly wage
requirement. We cannot evaluate this evidence relative to the OASYS data, whether

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under the highly deferential “arbitrary and capricious” standard of review or the more
demanding “de novo” standard, without knowing how the OASYS data was computed.
As a result, we remand this case to the Hartford administrator so that the factual record
may be completed to determine how OASYS computed its wage data. See Shelby Cnty.
Health Care Corp. v. Majestic Star Casino, 581 F.3d 355, 373 (6th Cir. 2009) (noting
that an incomplete factual record provides a basis to remand the case to the plan
administrator).
The district court’s judgment is VACATED and we REMAND this case to the
district court with instructions that it REMAND the case to Hartford’s plan administrator
so that the record may be developed in accordance with this opinion. Upon completion
of such proceeding, the parties shall transmit the supplemented administrative record to
the district court so that the district court judge may review the parties’ remaining
arguments (as reflected in their appeal briefs) in light of the supplemented record. The
district court judge is free to revisit all of his previous conclusions in light of the
supplemented record.