Abnathya v. Hoffmann-La Roche, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
2 F.3d 40 · 1993
Citation profile
49 federal appellate · 44 district · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 243 later decisions — most recently November 2021 · most notably Pagan v. Nynex Pension Plan (1995), Miller v. United Welfare Fund (1995)
49 federal appellate · 44 district · 3 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1291 · 29 U.S.C. § 1001 (§ 2 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974) · 29 U.S.C. § 1002 (§ 3 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974) · 29 U.S.C. § 1132 (§ 502 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974) · 29 U.S.C. § 1144 (§ 514 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974)
Relies on Firestone Tire and Rubber Company v. Bruch · Miller v. Metropolitan Life Insurance · Jim L. Woolsey v. Marion Laboratories, Inc. Marion Laboratories, Inc., Profit Sharing Plan · Nazay v. Miller
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 243 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“only if it is `without reason, unsupported by substantial evidence or erroneous as a matter of law.'”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“incurs no direct expense as a result of the allowance of benefits, nor does it benefit directly from the denial or discontinuation of benefits.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(1) In "determining the appropriate standard of review, a court should be guided by principles of trust law;” in doing so it should analogize a plan administrator to the trustee of a common-law trust and it should consider a benefit determination to be a fiduciary act in which the administrator owes a special duty of loyalty to the plan beneficiaries; (2) principles of trust law require courts to review a denial of plan benefits under a de novo standard unless the plan provides to the contrary; (3) where the plan provides to the contrary by granting the administrator or fiduciary discretionary authority to determine eligibility for benefits, trust principles make a deferential standard of review appropriate; and (4) if a benefit plan gives discretion to an administrator or fiduciary who is operating under a conflict of interest, that conflict must be weighed as a factor in determining whether there is an abuse of discretion.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.