Re: [moldtheseverereactor] Man With Controversial Illness Can Get Benefits

[Guest guest]

That is a good one. Wonder if a coroner examined the body and determined

the dissenting judge had actually died or if someone just wrote it on a

piece of paper?

" Writing in dissent before her death on Feb. 26, Judge Holcomb Hall

questioned the majority's logic on several fronts, including that the

physicians who actually examined Salomaa should be given more

weight then those who didn't.

" The majority first draws attention to the fact that the doctors who

personally examined Salomaa found that he was disabled, " she wrote. " Those

doctors who found otherwise, the majority explains, did not personally meet with

Salomaa. The majority then derives importance from this fact, suggesting

(without outright stating) that doctors who personally examine claimants are

somehow more reliable than doctors who do not personally examine claimants.

It then implies that the plan's decision not to personally examine Salomaa

evinces an abuse of discretion. It is unclear from the opinion why the

majority adopts these views, as it provides no clear reason why a doctor who

personally examined Salomaa should be given more authority or attention than

one who didn't, and no clear reason why a lack of personal examination

precipitates

an abuse of discretion. Perhaps no reasons were given because no reasons

exist. "

In a message dated 3/9/2011 12:31:34 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,

kmtown2003@... writes:

We always like to see a win,

Man With Controversial Illness Can Get Benefits

_http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/03/08/34742.htm_

(http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/03/08/34742.htm)

(CN) - Honda must award long-term disability payments to a 47-year-old

man suffering from extreme Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, the 9th Circuit

ruled,

finding that the insurance company's denial of those benefits was

" implausible "

and " illogical. "

The federal appeals court in Pasadena reversed

a District Court ruling that said Honda's ERISA plan administrator was

right in

denying benefits to Salomaa.

By all accounts, Salomaa, who attended Harvard and

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was an ideal employee of the

American

Honda Motor Company in Southern California for more than 20 years before

he took

ill in 2003. Fellow employees and supervisors described him as an active,

hard-working and intelligent man, and, according to one supervisor quoted

in the

ruling, " one of the few people in Southern California to walk or jog to

work. "

That all changed after a bout with the flu in

2003. After three days off sick, Salomaa returned to work a changed man.

Small

tasks left him completely exhausted, and he even showed signs of

diminished