United States Eleventh Circuit

In an ERISA action seeking reimbursement for medical expenses a benefit plan had paid on defendant's behalf after defendant was injured in an automobile collision, summary judgment for plaintiff is affirmed where: 1) the plan's reimbursement and subrogation provision, which stated that "the Plan may collect from [a] covered person[] the proceeds of any full or partial recovery" he obtained from a third-party tortfeasor, "regardless of whether [the] covered person has been fully compensated or made whole," was clearly sufficient to disclaim any "make-whole" limitation on plaintiff's right to reimbursement; and 2) the reimbursement plaintiff sought was not a premium or contribution on the basis of any health status-related factor to be paid out of defendant's general assets, and instead plaintiff sought to recover specific and identifiable funds, advanced to cover defendant's accident-related medical expenses, that were being held in trust by defendant's attorneys.

Appellate Information

• Decided 04/26/2010
• Published 04/26/2010

Judges

• BIRCH, Circuit Judge:, Before DUBINA, Chief Judge, and BIRCH and BLACK, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Eleventh Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Charles Madden Cork, III, Macon, GA, for Defendants-Appellants., Tiffany Delome Downs, Ford & Harrison, LLP, Atlanta, GA, Alexander P. Ryan, Edward A. Scallet, Thomas F. Fitzgerald, Groom Law Group, Chartered, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff-Appellee.