Donald E. CONLEY, Appellant,
v.
PITNEY BOWES, A Corporation; Pitney Bowes Long Term
Disability Plan; George B. Harvey and Carmine F. Adimando,
As Trustees of Pitney Bowes Long Term Disability Plan;
Pitney Bowes Group Life Insurance Plan; Pitney Bowes Major
Medical Expense Plan; Pitney Bowes Dental Expense Plan;
and Michael Critelli, Appellees.
No. 97-3963.
United States Court of Appeals,
Eighth Circuit.
Submitted Feb. 11, 1999.
Filed May 7, 1999.
Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied June 24, 1999.
S. Shеldon Weinhaus, St. Louis, Missouri, argued, for Appellant.
Keith A. Rabenberg, St. Louis, Missouri, argued (Clark H. Cole, on the brief), for Appellees.
Before WOLLMAN, LOKEN, and MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judges.
MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.
Donald Conley was injured in an automobile accident while working for Pitney Bowes. He received short-term disability benefits for a time after the accident and was then placed on long-term disability status, as providеd for by the Pitney Bowes employee welfare plan. The terms of the plan state that in order to receive long-term disability benefits during the first 12 months after an employee allegedly becomes totally disabled, the employee needs only to be "unable to perform his own occupation." In order to receive long-term disability benefits for mоre than 12 months, however, an employee needs to be "unable ... to engage in any gainful occupation or profession for which he is, or could become, reasonably suited by education, experience, or training."
Pitney Bowes informed Mr. Conley by letter that his long-term disability benefits would be terminated after 12 months because he did not meet the stricter standard for additional benefits. Mr. Conley did not respond to the letter and sometime later he was given the choice of taking three months of personal leave or resigning. Mr. Conley then replied that he was unable to return to work at that time but hoped that he would eventually be able to do so; he also announced his intention to sue Pitney Bowеs for the continuation of his long-term disability benefits. Pitney Bowes heard nothing more from Mr. Conley and eventually informed him that his employment was terminated.
Mr. Conley then sued Pitney Bowes under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), see 29 U.S.C. §§ 1001-1461, seeking review of the denial of additional long-term disability benefits, see 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(1)(B), § 1132(a)(3), and also alleging breach of fiduciary duty, see 29 U.S.C. § 1109(a), § 1132(a)(2), § 1132(a)(3), and wrongful discharge, see 29 U.S.C. § 1140. The trial court1 dismissed the fiduciary duty claim under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), see Conley v. Pitney Bowes, Inc.,
At a subsequent bench trial, the court reviewed the plan administrators' decision to deny benefits, considering only the administrative record that existed at the time of the plan administrators' decision, and concluded that the denial was reаsonable and supported by substantial evidence. The trial court added that if it were to review the evidence de novo, including some that the plan administrators did not have before them, the court itself would conclude that Mr. Conley's alleged injury lacked believability and that he did not meet the requirements for additional long-term disability benefits under the plаn. Finally, the trial court found that Pitney Bowes did not wrongfully discharge Mr. Conley, see Conley v. Pitney Bowes, Inc.,
I.
Mr. Conley argues that the trial court should not have dismissed his claim for breach of fiduciary duty. Mr. Conley described the alleged fiduciary violations as failure to provide him with proper notice of his opportunity to appeal, failure to maintain a complete administrative record, and failure to conduct a full and impartial investigation of his condition. Mr. Conley sought equitable relief in the form of a restoration to him of past and future additional long-term disability benefits; he also sought reform of the claim procedure generally and removal of the fiduciaries or the appointment of an ombudsman.
Part of the enforcement statute for ERISA, see 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(2), provides a cause of action for breach of fiduciary duty under 29 U.S.C. § 1109(a), which states that a fiduciary who breaches his or her duty is personally liable for losses to the plan and subject to "such other equitable or remedial relief as the court may deem appropriate, including removal of such fiduciary." As the trial court noted, however, § 1109(a) provides relief only to a plan and not to individual beneficiaries. See Varity Corp. v. Howe,
Nor does Mr. Conley have a claim for equitable relief in the form of benefits under § 1132(a)(3)(B), which provides a participant, beneficiary, or fiduciary with an action to obtain appropriate equitable relief to redress violations of the provisions of a plan or to enforce any such provisions. We have held that where a plaintiff is "provided adequate relief by [the] right to bring a claim for benefits under ... § 1132(a)(1)(B)," the plaintiff does not have a cause of action to seek the same remedy under § 1132(a)(3)(B). Wald v. Southwestern Bell Corporation Customcare Medical Plan,
II.
Mr. Conley further asserts that the trial court erred when it found in favor of the defendants on his claim for additional long-term disability benefits. We review the trial court's findings of fact for clear error and its conclusions of law de novo. See Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa, Inc. v. Atchison,
Mr. Conley first contends that the plan administrаtors and the trial court gave too much weight to the diagnosis of Dr. Daniel Phillips, a physician who regularly conducts examinations for insurer-defendants in workers' compensation claims. Mr. Conley suggests that Dr. Phillips's finding of minimal objective symptoms was biased and that the 8 percent permanent partial disability rating that Dr. Phillips gave to him was meaningless. Second, Mr. Conlеy argues that chronic pain itself constituted a disability and that the plan administrators and the trial court ignored his evidence of disabling pain, including the fact that he was taking narcotics, the fact that several doctors recommended surgery as a possible option, and the reports of a nurse who witnessed him moving with difficulty.
There was, however, considerable evidence in the record besides Dr. Phillips's report to support the finding that Mr. Conley was not totally disabled as defined by the plan. The trial court was in the best position, moreover, to judge the credibility of Mr. Conley's testimony with respect to pain. We cannot say that "on the entire evidence" we are "left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed," as we must to do in order to find a trial court's factual findings clearly erroneous. United States v. United States Gypsum Co.,
III.
Mr. Conley also maintains that the trial court committed numerous errors of law. First, he objects to the standard of review that the trial court applied to the defendants' determination that he was not eligible for additiоnal long-term disability benefits. The trial court correctly noted that since the terms of the plan grant explicit discretionary authority to the employee benefits committee to construe the plan and to determine a claimant's eligibility for benefits, the deferential "abuse of discretion" standard of review would ordinarily be appropriatе. See Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. v. Bruch,
The trial court was disturbed by two apparent violations of the provisions of the plan that might have amounted to a significant procedural irregularity, namely, the unauthorized delegation of decision-making power to the medical director of the defendants' disability department and the absence from the records of a written exрlanation of the rationale for the decision that Mr. Conley was not totally disabled (as defined by the plan). The trial court decided that it did not need to reach a conclusion on the standard of review, however, because it would uphold the defendants' decision under either standard. Indeed, the trial court said that its conclusion would be the same if it applied a de novo standard of review to the record established by Pitney Bowes at the time of the decision to deny additional long-term disability benefits to Mr. Conley; the trial court also stated that its conclusion would only be further bolstered by a consideration of supplemental evidence offered by the parties beyond that containеd in the administrative record.
Mr. Conley asserts that the trial court maintained throughout the trial, over his objection, that it would apply an abuse of discretion standard of review and that it adopted a stricter standard only after the trial was over. Mr. Conley contends that this shift undermined his ability to present his case effectively. He does not, however, indicate what he would have done differently had he known that the trial court would use the stricter scrutiny that he felt was appropriate. Since Mr. Conley had to present a stronger case under the deferential standard that he believed that the trial court was applying, moreover, we fail to see how he was harmed if the trial court instead applied a stricter, less deferential standard of review.
IV.
Mr. Conley further maintains that the trial court should not have allowed the defendants to introduce new evidence and should not have considered the defendants' post hoc explanations for their decision to deny him additional long-term disability benefits. It is true that in reviewing a denial of benefits under an employee welfare plan subject to ERISA, a court must focus on the evidence available to the plan administrators at the time of their decision and may not admit new evidence or consider post hoc rationales. See Marolt v. Alliant Techsystems, Inc.,
Mr. Conley also makes the more serious allegation that the trial court restricted him to the administrative record but allowed the defendants to introduce new evidence that was favorable to them. Speсifically, Mr. Conley alleges that the trial court refused to consider the deposition of his personal physician, Dr. W.H. Elliott. As evidence that the court ignored Dr. Elliott's testimony, Mr. Conley points to the fact that there is no reference to that testimony in the single paragraph of the trial court's opinion stating that de novo review of the expanded record also supported its finding that the defendants justifiably denied additional long-term disability benefits to Mr. Conley. The lack of a reference to Dr. Elliott in that brief paragraph, however, does not necessarily mean that the trial court failed to consider the deposition. Dr. Elliott's deposition was admitted into evidence, and we see no reasоn to believe that the trial court failed to take it into account.
The absence of Dr. Elliott's name from the trial court's discussion of de novo review is also the basis for Mr. Conley's argument that the court failed to apply the principle that a treating physician's opinion is entitled to greater deference than the opinion of a reviewing physician. See, e.g., Donaho,
V.
Mr. Conley next asserts that the trial court should have required the defendants to use the so-called Polaski factors to evaluate the validity of his subjective complaints of pain. See Polaski v. Heckler,
Mr. Conley similarly suggests that once he established that he was unable to perform his own job, the defendants had the burden of showing that jobs were available in the national economy that he was capable of pеrforming. Since he suffered from a nonexertional impairment, namely, pain, Mr. Conley argues that the defendants could meet this burden only by using vocational expert testimony or other similar evidence. See Neely v. Shalala,
Mr. Conley submits in addition that the trial court erred when it stated that the award of social security benefits to him was not entitled to any particular weight in the overall consideration of his claim. Mr. Conley cites Cox v. Mid-America Dairymen, Inc.,
Mr. Conley also draws our attention to Ladd v. ITT Corp.,
VI.
We turn, finally, to the question of whether Mr. Conley was discharged either for exercising any right under the employee welfare plan or for thе purpose of interfering with his right to obtain benefits to which he was entitled, both of which are unlawful. See 29 U.S.C. § 1140. The trial court found that Mr. Conley was terminated because, more than a year after he had justifiably been denied additional long-term disability benefits, he still had not returned to work or made other acceptable arrangements. This was a lawful reason for discharge, the trial court correctly held, adding that Mr. Conley never persuaded the court that his termination was in fact motivated by other considerations.
On appeal, Mr. Conley points to the fact that the company records gave "health" as the reason for his termination. This indicates, he says, that his poor health and eligibility for additional lоng-term disability payments were the real motives for his termination. It is not clear to us from the record whether Mr. Conley made this argument to the trial court. Even if he did, however, we find that, in the circumstances of this case, it was not improper for the trial court to give greater weight to the evidence of a lawful reason for Mr. Conley's discharge.VII.
For the reasons stated, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.
Notes
The Honorable Donald J. Stohr, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Missouri