Recently, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (the “Court of Appeals”) held in Santana-Díaz v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, that a plan administrator’s failure to include the time limit for filing a suit challenging its denial of a participant’s request for long term disability (“LTD”) benefits was a violation of the provisions of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (“ERISA”). Therefore, instead of the term included in the LTD plan document, Puerto Rico’s limitation period for contractual disputes (15 years), applied to the claim. Background The plaintiff, Mr. Santana-Díaz (the “Plaintiff”), an employee of Shell Chemical Yabucoa, Inc. (“Shell”), participated in Shell’s employee … [Read more...]
