Gaines

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER REGARDING DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

I.

INTRODUCTION

This case presents a dispute concerning a $150,000 life insurance policy purchased by Plaintiff, Donald Gaines, for his wife Velda, through a benefit plan offered by his employer, Sargent Fletcher, Inc. When Velda died Sargent Fletcher, Inc. Group Life Insurance Plan and the insurance company that issued the policy, Defendant Hartford Life Insurance Company, refused to pay more than $20,000 because Gaines had not provided the insurer with information regarding his wife’s health that was supposedly required to purchase the additional $130,000 in coverage. The Plan and Hartford have persisted in refusing to hon- or Gaines’s claim even though Gaines filled out the forms provided to him by his employer and paid monthly premiums on the $150,000 policy until his wife died. Sargent Fletcher deducted these premiums from his paycheck, and forwarded them to Hartford, which accepted the payments without comment, and said nothing about the allegedly missing information until Gaines made his claim.

What the Court finds most noteworthy is that Defendants take this position in the face of the concession by…