Dozier v. Sun Life Assurance
Disability Insurance
Eastern District of Kentucky at London
06a0398p.06 10/27/2006
SUTTON, Circuit Judge. Dennis Dozier challenges the district court’s dismissal of his employee-benefits suit for failure to exhaust administrative remedies, claiming that pursuing the administrative review process for one benefit after the insurance company had already rejected his application for a similar (though easier to obtain) benefit would have been futile. Because it indeed would have been futile for Dozier to ask the insurance company to find that he could not perform “any occupation” for which he was qualified (the eligibility requirement for obtaining a waiver of life insurance premiums) after the company had already concluded that he could perform his “own occupation” (making him ineligible for long-term-disability benefits), we reverse.
