Mueller v. Lincoln National Life Ins. Co.

CourtDistrict Court, E.D. California
DecidedJanuary 26, 2024
Docket2:23-cv-00919
StatusUnknown

This text of Mueller v. Lincoln National Life Ins. Co. (Mueller v. Lincoln National Life Ins. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mueller v. Lincoln National Life Ins. Co., (E.D. Cal. 2024).

Opinion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 ----oo0oo---- 11 12 BRIGITTE MUELLER, No. 2:23-cv-00919 WBS JDP 13 Plaintiff, 14 v. MEMORANDUM OF DECISION 15 THE LINCOLN NATIONAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, 16 Defendant. 17

18 ----oo0oo---- 19 Plaintiff Brigitte Mueller brought this action against 20 defendant Lincoln National Life Insurance Company alleging that 21 defendant violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act 22 (“ERISA”), 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a), when it failed to pay accidental 23 death benefits following the death of plaintiff’s husband. 24 On January 23, 2024, the court held a hearing pursuant 25 to Kearney v. Standard Insurance Co., 175 F.3d 1084, 1089 (9th 26 Cir. 1999) (en banc). The following memorandum constitutes the 27 court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law pursuant to 28 1 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a). 2 I. Factual and Procedural Background 3 Kenneth Mueller was employed as the Chief Financial 4 Officer of Raley’s, a supermarket chain. (See Admin. Record 5 (“Record”) (Docket No. 25-1) at 109, 160.) As part of his 6 employment, he (and other Raley’s executives) traveled by private 7 plane to various Raley’s store locations. (Id.) Raley’s 8 encouraged Mr. Mueller to receive his pilot’s license and paid 9 for Mr. Mueller to receive flying lessons. (See id. at 109-10, 10 160, 223.) 11 On September 4, 2022, Richard Conte (Raley’s Chief 12 Pilot) and Mr. Mueller were flying in a private twin-engine 13 aircraft. (See id. at 109, 160.) Though Mr. Mueller had 14 acquired his pilot’s license by this time, he was not yet 15 qualified to fly this type of aircraft and was with Mr. Conte for 16 the purpose of learning to fly the aircraft. (See id. at 110, 17 128, 160.) The aircraft crashed and both Mr. Mueller and Mr. 18 Conte suffered fatal injuries. (See id. at 110, 122, 128-30, 19 160.) The National Transportation Safety Board investigated the 20 incident and found that both the “flight instructor and pilot 21 receiving instruction were fatally injured,” noting that the 22 crash involved two “crew” injuries and zero “passenger” injuries. 23 (Id. at 128.) 24 The aircraft involved in the accident was managed by R 25 & T Aviation, LLC. (Id. at 107.) Mr. Conte routinely provided 26 aircraft management services to Raley’s under the auspices of R & 27 T Aviation. (See id. at 107, 109.) For previous flights taken 28 for educational purposes by Mr. Mueller and Mr. Conte, Raley’s 1 had reimbursed R & T Aviation for the fuel costs. (See id. at 2 107, 155-57.) R & T Aviation planned to bill Raley’s for the 3 fuel used on September 4, 2022, and would have done so had the 4 plane not crashed. (See id. at 107.) 5 Plaintiff sought accidental death benefits pursuant to 6 Raley’s employee life insurance policy, which was funded and 7 administered by defendant Lincoln National Insurance Company (see 8 id. at 167, 227, 423, 451-53) and governed by ERISA, 29 U.S.C. §§ 9 1001 et seq. 10 Defendant denied benefits, stating that Mr. Mueller was 11 a student pilot and therefore fell under the policy’s aircraft 12 exclusion. (See Record at 93-95.) Plaintiff pursed two appeals 13 of the decision through defendant’s appeal department, both of 14 which were unsuccessful. (See id. at 25-30, 97-101, 233.) 15 II. Standard of Review 16 ERISA allows a participant or beneficiary to bring a 17 civil action to recover plan benefits. 29 U.S.C. § 18 1132(a)(1)(B); Metro. Life Ins. Co. v. Glenn, 554 U.S. 105, 108 19 (2008). In ERISA actions challenging denials of benefits under 20 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(1)(B), “[d]e novo is the default standard of 21 review.” Abatie v. Alta Health & Life Ins. Co., 458 F.3d 955, 22 963 (9th Cir. 2006) (en banc) (internal citations omitted); see 23 also Kearney, 175 F.3d at 1089. 24 The parties agree that de novo review limited to the 25 existing administrative record is appropriate here. See Kearney, 26 175 F.3d at 1089-90. “De novo review can best be understood as 27 essentially a bench trial ‘on the papers’ with the District Court 28 acting as the finder of fact.” Zelhofer v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 1 No. 2:16-cv-00773 TLN AC, 2022 WL 525562, at *11 (E.D. Cal. Feb. 2 22, 2022) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Kearney, 3 175 F.3d at 1094. When review is de novo, “the court does not 4 give deference to the claim administrator’s decision, but rather 5 determines in the first instance” if the claimant has “adequately 6 established” that she is entitled to benefits “under the terms of 7 the plan.” See Muniz v. Amec Constr. Mgmt. Inc., 623 F.3d 1290, 8 1295–96 (9th Cir. 2010). 9 III. Discussion 10 At issue here is the application of an exception to the 11 policy’s aircraft exclusion. 12 The aircraft exclusion provides: “No benefits are 13 payable for any loss that is contributed to or caused by . . . 14 boarding, leaving or being in or on any kind of aircraft.” 15 (Raley’s Group Life Insurance Policy (“Policy”) (Docket No. 25-2) 16 at AEX-1.) 17 The exception to the aircraft exclusion provides: 18 “[T]his exclusion will not apply if the Covered Person is [1] a 19 fare paying passenger on a commercial aircraft or [2] traveling 20 as a passenger in any aircraft that is owned or leased by or on 21 behalf of the Sponsor.” (Id. (emphasis added).) 22 Plaintiff argues that decedent falls under the second 23 clause of the exception. Thus, plaintiff must establish both 24 that decedent was a passenger, and that the aircraft was owned or 25 leased by or on behalf of Raley’s. 26 In determining whether a plaintiff is entitled to 27 coverage under ERISA, the Ninth Circuit “has generally applied 28 federal common law to questions of insurance policy 1 interpretation.” Dowdy v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 890 F.3d 802, 2 807 (9th Cir. 2018) (citing Padfield v. AIG Life Ins. Co., 290 3 F.3d 1121, 1125 (9th Cir. 2002)). However, courts may also 4 “borrow from state law where appropriate” and look to “the 5 interests served by ERISA’s regulatory scheme.” Id. at 807-08 6 (internal quotation marks omitted). “[I]t is ‘the policy of 7 [ERISA] to protect . . . the interests of participants in 8 employee benefit plans and their beneficiaries’ and to ‘increase 9 the likelihood that participants and beneficiaries . . . receive 10 their full benefits.’” Id. at 808 (quoting 29 U.S.C. §§ 1001(b), 11 1001b(c)(3)). 12 The terms of an ERISA plan “should be interpreted ‘in 13 an ordinary and popular sense as would a [person] of average 14 intelligence and experience.’” McDaniel v. Chevron Corp., 203 15 F.3d 1099, 1110 (9th Cir. 2000) (quoting Richardson v. Pension 16 Plan of Bethlehem Steel Corp., 112 F.3d 982, 985 (9th Cir. 1997)) 17 (alteration in original). “‘When disputes arise, courts should 18 first look to explicit language of the agreement to determine, if 19 possible, the clear intent of the parties.’” Gilliam v.

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Bluebook (online)
Mueller v. Lincoln National Life Ins. Co., Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mueller-v-lincoln-national-life-ins-co-caed-2024.