United States Fifth Circuit

Summary judgment for defendant, plan administrator and stop-loss insurer, pursuant to a holding that a bank-s state law claims of detrimental reliance, breach of contract, and misrepresentation were preempted by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), is affirmed in part and reversed in part where certain claims did not require inquiry into defendants' processing of benefit claims or administration of the plan, and defendant was not acting in a fiduciary capacity when it negotiated a stop-loss extension, represented to the bank which claims would be covered by the stop-loss extension, and performed its duties under the stop-loss extension.

Appellate Information

• Decided 10/18/2006
• Published 10/18/2006

Judges

• EMILIO M. GARZA, Circuit Judge:, Before REAVLEY, GARZA and BENAVIDES, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Fifth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Henry L. Klein (argued), New Orleans, LA, for Plaintiff-Appellant.


• For Appellees:
  
• Richard Guy Duplantier, Jr., Galloway, Johnson, Tompkins, Burr & Smith, New Orleans, LA, John Bruce Shely (argued), Kendall Matthew Gray, Andrews & Kurth, Houston, TX, for Defendants-Appellees.