Wright

MEMORANDUM *

The Hewlett-Packard Company Employee Benefits Organization Income Protection Plan appeals the district court’s summary judgment for the plaintiff, Kathy Wright (“Wright”). Under the relevant disability-benefits plan (“the Plan”), an independent claims administrator, Voluntary Plan Administrator (“VPA”), determines whether a claimant qualifies for benefits. The district court held that Wright’s organic brain syndrome fit an exception to the Plan’s limitations regarding mental illnesses and that VPA ignored the condition and evidence that the condition fits the Plan’s limitation exception, thereby abusing its discretion.

We hold that VPA misconstrued the exception to the exclusion. The phrase “other organic, degenerative, progressive diseases as determined by the Claims Administrator” means that any disease VPA determined, or should have determined, to be “organic, degenerative, and progressive” fits the defined exception. If this is the only basis for finding that VPA abused its discretion, the case should be remanded to the administrator to apply the correct definition of the exception. See Saffle v. Sierra Pac. Power Co. Bargaining Unit Long Term Disability In *505…