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On July 17, 2008, Scott M. Riemer served as a faculty member on a live webcast sponsored by the Practicing Law Institute. The topic of the webcast was the "A New Firestone Drill under ERISA: MetLife v. Glenn." Please take a look at PLI's website for more information. http://www.pli.edu/product/webcast_detail.asp?id=49490
On June 19, 2008, the Supreme Court issued its long awaited decision in MetLife v. Glenn. The Supreme Court held that Courts must consider an insurer's conflict of interest as one of the factors when deciding whether an insurer's determination was an abuse of discretion. Most importantly, the Supreme Court established that the conflict of interest may serve as a tiebreaker when the other factors are closely balanced. As a practical matter, this could have a huge impact. Prior to MetLife v. Glenn, close cases usually were decided in favor of the insurance company. Now, the opposite may prove true. Stay tuned. The next few years of litigation will be quite interesting.
