Moceri v. Ratner Companies, LC et al

Filing 34

OPINION AND ORDER granting 21 Defendant Metropolitan Life Insurance Company's Motion to Dismiss. Count II of 1 the Complaint is dismissed as to Defendant Metropolitan Life Insurance Company without prejudice to filing an Amended Complaint within 14 days of this Opinion and Order. See Opinion and Order for details. Signed by Judge John E. Steele on 4/7/2015. (MAW)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
FORT MYERS DIVISION
CYNTHIA MOCERI, estate of,
Plaintiff,
v.

Case No: 2:14-cv-579-FtM-29CM

RATNER
COMPANIES,
LC,
a
foreign
corporation
and
METROPOLITAN LIFE INSURANCE
COMPANY,
Defendants.

OPINION AND ORDER
This matter comes before the Court on review of Defendant
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company’s Motion to Dismiss (Doc. #21)
filed on January 5, 2015.

Plaintiff filed a Response (Doc. #26)

on January 27, 2015 to which Defendant filed a Reply (Doc. #31) on
March 2, 2015.

For the reasons set forth below, the motion is

granted.
I.
Plaintiff, the Estate of Cynthia Moceri (Moceri), has filed
a

two-count

Complaint

(Doc.

#1)

against

Defendants

Ratner

Companies, LC (Ratner) and Metropolitan Life Insurance Company
(MetLife) alleging breach of fiduciary duty in connection with
rights secured by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act
(ERISA) and the Comprehensive Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act

(COBRA).

The underlying facts, as set forth in the Complaint, are

as follows:
Moceri was employed by Ratner from October 2011 until her
termination in July 2013.

(Id. at ¶ 10.)

Upon her termination,

Rater was required to notify Moceri that she had a right to
continue her health insurance coverage pursuant to COBRA, but
Ratner failed to do so.

(Id. at ¶¶ 11-14.)

Had Moceri received

the required notification, she would have elected to continue her
health insurance coverage.

(Id. at ¶ 15.)

While she was employed by Ratner, Moceri was a participant in
a Group Life Insurance Policy offered by Ratner, through which
Moceri obtained a life insurance policy issued by MetLife.
at ¶ 6.)

(Id.

Upon her termination, Ratner and MetLife did not timely

notify Moceri of her right to continue her life insurance coverage.
(Id. at ¶ 16.)

The notice did not arrive until October 3, 2013,

two days after Moceri passed away. Had she received timely notice,
Moceri would have opted to continue her life insurance coverage.
(Id. at ¶ 20.)

Because she did not continue her coverage, MetLife

has refused to pay the $70,000 to which Moceri would otherwise be
entitled under the insurance policy.

(Id. at ¶ 17.)

MetLife now moves to dismiss Count II,1 arguing that it had
no duty to notify Moceri of her life insurance continuation rights

1

Count I is brought against Ratner only.

2

and, therefore, its alleged failure to do so in a timely fashion
cannot support a cause of action for breach of fiduciary duty.
Moceri responds that Count II is adequately pled.
II.
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2), a Complaint
must contain a “short and plain statement of the claim showing
that the pleader is entitled to relief.”

Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2).

This obligation “requires more than labels and conclusions, and a
formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not
do.”

Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007)

(citation omitted).

To survive dismissal, the factual allegations

must be “plausible” and “must be enough to raise a right to relief
above the speculative level.”

Id. at 555.

See also Edwards v.

Prime Inc., 602 F.3d 1276, 1291 (11th Cir. 2010).
“more

than

accusation.”

an

unadorned,

Ashcroft

v.

This requires

the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me
Iqbal,

556

U.S.

662,

678

(2009)

(citations omitted).
In deciding a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, the Court must
accept all factual allegations in a complaint as true and take
them in the light most favorable to plaintiff, Erickson v. Pardus,
551 U.S. 89 (2007), but “[l]egal conclusions without adequate
factual support are entitled to no assumption of truth,” Mamani v.
Berzaín, 654 F.3d 1148, 1153 (11th Cir. 2011) (citations omitted).
“Threadbare

recitals

of

the

elements

3

of

a

cause

of

action,

supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.” Iqbal,
556 U.S. at 678.
with

a

“Factual allegations that are merely consistent

defendant’s

plausible.”

liability

fall

short

of

being

facially

Chaparro v. Carnival Corp., 693 F.3d 1333, 1337 (11th

Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Thus,
the Court engages in a two-step approach: “When there are wellpleaded factual allegations, a court should assume their veracity
and

then

determine

whether

entitlement to relief.”

they

plausibly

give

rise

to

an

Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679.
III.

In Count II, Moceri alleges that MetLife owed her a fiduciary
duty to provide timely notice of her life insurance continuance
rights, and that MetLife breached that duty by waiting months
before providing her notice. In support of this allegation, Moceri
cites ERISA’s standard of care provision, which provides that:
“a fiduciary shall discharge his duties with
respect to a plan solely in the interest of the
participants and beneficiaries and . . . with the
care, skill, prudence, and diligence under the
circumstances then prevailing that a prudent man
acting in a like capacity and familiar with such
matters would use in the conduct of an enterprise
of a like character and with like aims.”
29 U.S.C. § 1104(a)(1)(B).

MetLife acknowledges that any ERISA

duties it owed to Moceri must be discharged in accordance with
that standard.

However, MetLife argues that the duty to provide

timely notice of continuance rights is not among them.

4

Moceri does not cite, and the Court was unable to locate, any
statutory basis for the duty Moceri seeks to enforce against
MetLife.

To the contrary, other courts have held that ERISA does

not create such a duty.

Walker v. Fed. Exp. Corp., 492 F. App'x

559, 566 (6th Cir. 2012) (“ERISA does not contain any provision
that requires a plan administrator to provide notice to plan
participants other than a summary plan description and information
of

the

benefits

plan

as

discussed

under

29

U.S.C.

§§

1021(a)(1) and 1022.”); see also Prouty v. Hartford Life & Acc.
Ins. Co., 997 F. Supp. 2d 85, 91 (D. Mass. 2014) (“Other courts
who have addressed the issue of whether Plan Administrators and
insurers are required to provide plan participants with posttermination notice of life insurance conversion rights have found
no such requirement.”) (collecting cases).
Nevertheless, even if ERISA does not itself mandate written
notice of continuance rights, an insurer must provide such notice
if the policy in question so requires.

See Canada Life Assur. Co.

v. Estate of Lebowitz, 185 F.3d 231, 235-36 (4th Cir. 1999)
(“[S]ince the plain language of Canada Life's Policy documents
requires such written notice, Canada Life was required to give
Lebowitz written notice.”).

However, Moceri does not allege that

the documents governing her policy required MetLife to provide
notice of continuance rights, nor was the Court able to locate any

5

such provision.2

Accordingly, the Court concludes that Moceri has

failed to adequately allege that MetLife had a duty to notify her
of her continuance rights.
without prejudice.

Therefore, Count II will be dismissed

Moceri will be given leave to amend.

Accordingly, it is now
ORDERED:
Defendant Metropolitan Life Insurance Company’s Motion to
Dismiss (Doc. #21) is GRANTED.

Count II of the Complaint (Doc.

#1) is dismissed as to Defendant Metropolitan Life Insurance
Company without prejudice to filing an Amended Complaint within
FOURTEEN (14) DAYS of this Opinion and Order.
DONE AND ORDERED at Fort Myers, Florida, this

7th

day of

April, 2015.

Copies: Counsel of record

2

MetLife provided the governing document as an attachment to its
Reply in support of its motion.
(Doc. #31-1.)
The Court may
properly consider the Plan in the context of MetLife’s motion to
dismiss because it is central to Moceri’s case and neither party
disputes its authenticity.
Day v. Taylor, 400 F.3d 1272, 1276
(11th Cir. 2005).

6