United States Tenth Circuit

In an ERISA action against an insurer arising from a denial of plaintiffs' claim for accidental death benefits based on the fact that, at the time of the crash, plaintiffs' son's blood alcohol level was almost three times the limit permitted under Colorado law, judgment for plaintiffs is affirmed where: 1) although defendant eventually denied plaintiffs' claim on administrative review, it did so substantially outside the time period within which the plan vested it with discretion to interpret and apply the plan, and thus it was not acting within the discretion provided by the plan; 2) the decedent died, not of alcohol intoxication, but as a result of head and internal injuries suffered in a motor vehicle crash; 3) "accident," as used in the policy, extended coverage to an unintended death resulting from an vehicle crash where the driver had a blood alcohol content approximately 2.8 times the legal limit and where the vehicle was being driven approximately twenty miles an hour over the speed limit on a two-lane rural road at night; and 4) because plaintiffs failed to request an award of attorney's fees in a proper manner, the district court did not err in declining to award attorney's fees.

Appellate Information

• Decided 05/06/2010
• Published 05/06/2010

Judges

• EBEL, Circuit Judge., Before BRISCOE, Chief Judge, EBEL and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Tenth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Jack M. Englert, Jr. (Michael S. Beaver of Holland & Hart LLP, Greenwood Village, CO, and Lowell D. Kass of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Long Island City, NY, with him on the briefs), Holland & Hart LLP, Greenwood Village, CO, for Defendants-Appellants-Cross-Appellees., William D. Meyer, Hutchinson Black and Cook, LLC, Boulder, CO, for Plaintiffs-Appellees-Cross-Appellants.