Silk

MEMORANDUM *

John Silk appealed the district court’s dismissal of his action against Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (“MetLife”), et al. for recovery of long term disability (“LTD”) benefits under his employer’s Verizon Wireless Managed Disability Plan (the “Plan”). The Plan is funded by Met-Life and governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”), 29 U.S.C. §§ 1001 et seq. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 .

Silk filed his lawsuit in the district court on December 2, 2004, alleging that Met-Life’s failure to act on his claims for LTD benefits violated ERISA. MetLife filed an answer to the complaint, and asserted Silk had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies, but eventually agreed to consider Silk’s claims for LTD benefits.

We recently clarified in Vaught v. Scottsdale Healthcare Corp. Health Plan, that the requirement that a participant exhaust internal remedies, as set forth in Amato v. Bernard, 618 F.2d 559, 567 (9th Cir.1980), is not jurisdictional. Vaught, 546 F.3d 620 , 627 n. 2 (9th Cir.2008) (“Because Bowles [v. Russell, 551 U.S. 205 , 127 S.Ct. 2360 , 168 L.Ed.2d 96 (2007) ] super-cedes our prior decisions, we…