Metropolitan Life Insurance v. Glenn’s Empirical Analysis
554 U.S. 105 · 2008
Citation profile
518 federal appellate · 451 district · 18 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,950 later decisions (7 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2025 · most notably Conkright v. Frommert (2010), Montour v. Hartford Life & Accident Insurance (2009)
518 federal appellate · 451 district · 18 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 29 U.S.C. § 1001 (§ 2 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974) · 29 U.S.C. § 1003 (§ 4 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974) · 29 U.S.C. § 1108 (§ 408 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974) · 29 U.S.C. § 1132 (§ 502 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974)
Relies on Universal Camera Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board · Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, Inc. v. Volpe · Firestone Tire and Rubber Company v. Bruch · Pilot Life Insurance v. Dedeaux · Varity Corporation v. Howe
Cited together with Firestone Tire and Rubber Company v. Bruch · Black & Decker Disability Plan v. Nord · Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Celotex Corporation v. Catrett H · Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corporation
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 2,950 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The conflict of interest at issue here, for example, should prove more important (perhaps of great importance) where circumstances suggest a higher likelihood that it affected the benefits decision, including, but not limited to, cases where an insurance company administrator has a history of biased claims administration. It should prove less important (perhaps to the vanishing point) where the administrator has taken active steps to reduce potential bias and to promote accuracy, for example, by walling off claims administrators from those interested in firm finances, or by imposing management checks that penalize inaccurate decisionmaking irrespective of whom the inaccuracy benefits.”
119 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“weighed as a ' factor in determining whether there is an abuse of discretion.'”
22 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Often the entity that administers the plan, such as an employer or an insurance company, both determines whether an employee is eligible for benefits and pays benefits out of its own pocket. We here decide that this dual role creates a conflict of interest; that a reviewing court should consider that conflict as a factor in determining whether the plan administrator has abused its discretion in denying benefits; and that the significance of the factor will depend upon the circumstances of the particular case.”
19 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.