O'Neil

MEMORANDUM *

Appellee Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company (“FFIC”) last employed Appellant John O’Neil on January 27, 1984. *478 Seventeen years later, on May 7, 2001, O’Neil filed a claim with FFIC applying for long-term disability benefits under its 1979 Long Term Disability Plan (“Plan”). The Employee Benefits Administration Committee (“EBAC”), the administrator responsible for awarding benefits, denied O’Neil’s request on February 8, 2002. After EBAC denied O’Neil’s request for reconsideration on June 21, 2004, O’Neil timely filed for civil enforcement under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”), 29 U.S.C. § 1132 (a)(1), in United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The district court upheld EBAC’s denial and O’Neil appeals. We now affirm.

The district court properly applied an abuse of discretion standard of review to O’Neil’s case because the Plan’s language conferred discretionary authority on EBAC “[t]o interpret the provisions of the Plan ... including the right to remedy possible ambiguities, inconsistencies or omissions ...” and “[t]o determine the manner in which benefits shall be paid under the Plan, if discretionary, and the…