Murphy v. California Physicians Service
Opinion
Lead Opinion
Hamilton, J.
ORDER RE STANDARD OF REVIEW
Plaintiffs motion to determine the standard of review came on for hearing before this court on August 10, 2016. Plaintiff appeared by her counsel Corinne Chandler and Glenn Kantor, and defendants appeared by their counsel Linda Lawson. Having read the parties’ papers and carefully considered their arguments and the relevant legal authority, the court hereby GRANTS plaintiffs motion
BACKGROUND
This is an action under the Employee Retirement Security Act of 1974 *1241 (“ERISA”) to recover long-term disability benefits. Plaintiff Cathleen Murphy was employed by Blue Shield of California (“Blue Shield”) and was a participant in Blue Shield’s Consolidated Group Welfare Benefit Plan (“the Plan”), which included the Long Term Disability Plan.
Plaintiff originally submitted her claim for benefits on December 23, 2013. She filed the complaint in the present action on June 4, 2014, alleging that the claims administrator, The Prudential Insurance Company of America (“Prudential”), had failed to timely respond to her claim. After the complaint was filed, Prudential issued a decision denying plaintiffs claim.