PER CURIAM:
Susan Mead participated in a group long-term disability ("LTD") insurance policy administered by Reliastar Life Insurance Company ("Reliastar"). Mead, who suffers from degenerative cervical disc disease, sought LTD benefits under this policy, asserting that her "total disability" prevented her from performing her own occupation or any other. Reliastar denied her claim, causing Mead to bring this action pursuant to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ("ERISA") in which she seeks a declaratory judgment that she is entitled to the LTD benefits. Finding Reliastar's benefits determination arbitrary and capricious, the district court remanded the matter to the company with instructions that it calculate the amount of benefits owed to Mead because she was unable to perform the duties of her own occupation and determine whether she was eligible for additional benefits because she could not perform the duties of any other occupation. Reliastar appealed, and Mead now moves to dismiss for lack of appellate jurisdiction, arguing that the remand order is not a "final decision" under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. While this is a familiar issue in this circuit, we have never definitively decided whether, or under what circumstances, a district court's remand to an ERISA plan administrator is immediately appealable. We hold that under the circumstances of this case, the remand order is not an immediately appealable final decision under either the traditional principles of finality or our precedents governing remands to administrative agencies. We therefore dismiss Reliastar's appeal for lack of appellate jurisdiction.
Mead was a long-time employee of Reliastar Financial Corporation ("Reliastar Financial") who ended her tenure there in 2000. In connection with her employment, Mead participated in a group LTD insurance policy administered by Reliastar (the "Plan"). Under the Plan, Mead was eligible upon a showing of "total disability" to receive two forms of LTD benefits covering separate temporal periods. First, she could receive "own occupation" LTD benefits for up to 24 months if she demonstrated that her disability prevented her from performing the duties of her own occupation. After the expiration of this 24-month period, Mead could continue to receive "any occupation" LTD benefits by showing that her disability made her unable to perform the duties of any occupation for which she was qualified or could reasonably become qualified.
In 2003, Mead submitted a claim for LTD benefits under the Plan, asserting that her degenerative cervical disc disease
On remand, Reliastar reviewed additional evidence but again denied Mead's claim, finding that she was not "totally disabled" and thus ineligible for "own occupation" LTD benefits covering the initial 24-month period, or, by implication, for "any occupation" LTD benefits covering the time after that initial period. Mead sought judicial review of this determination by again moving for summary judgment in the district court that had remanded the case. In her papers, Mead sought judgment awarding her LTD benefits "retroactive to the first date of eligibility" — a timeframe that covered both the initial 24-month "own occupation" benefits period and the latter "any occupation" benefits period.
In December 2010, after Reliastar cross-moved for summary judgment, the district court again remanded to Reliastar. See Mead v. Reliastar Ins. Co., 755 F.Supp.2d 515, 517 (D.Vt.2010). The court held that Reliastar's denial of Mead's claim for "own occupation" benefits was arbitrary and capricious. Id. at 542. Among other flaws it identified in Reliastar's reasoning, the court highlighted that to arrive at the conclusion that Mead was not "totally disabled," Reliastar had "ignored" several physical requirements of Mead's former position, refused to recognize the "ample" objective evidence supporting her subjective complaints of pain, and provided "obviously false or misleading reasons" for discrediting the conclusions of its own neurologist. See id. at 529-42. Based on these flaws, the court held that Reliastar's determination as to Mead's eligibility for "own occupation" benefits was patently "unreasonable" and, as a result, it would be "inappropriate" to remand this eligibility determination for a second time. Id. at 542. Noting that Reliastar had never addressed the amount of "own occupation" benefits owed to Mead, however, the district court remanded that issue for Reliastar to make the required calculation. Id. Turning to Mead's request for "any occupation" benefits, the court observed that Reliastar had found her ineligible for these benefits based solely on its determination that she was not "totally disabled" during the initial 24-month "own occupation" benefits period. Id. Because it was "possible" that Reliastar could demonstrate that other substantial evidence supported its denial of "any occupation" benefits, the court remanded for Reliastar to make the initial eligibility determination. Id.
Mead, 755 F.Supp.2d at 542. The court concluded its decision by directing the clerk of court to "close the case" but stated that it would entertain a separate motion from Mead for prejudgment interest, attorneys' fees, and costs.
Reliastar has twice sought to stay the district court's December 2010 remand order during the pendency of its appeal. In its first stay motion, which was filed before any proceedings on remand, Reliastar offered to post bond in an amount equal to Mead's "own occupation" benefits. The district court denied this request without prejudice, observing that "there ha[d] been no monetary award in th[e] case" and its December 2010 "judgment" did not "set out an amount that Reliastar [was] required to pay." The court stated that once the determination as to the amount of "own occupation" benefits became a "final decision," that portion of the December 2010 order "may be amenable to a stay." Following this decision, Reliastar determined on remand that Mead was entitled to "own occupation" benefits totaling $156,000, but that she was not eligible to receive "any occupation" benefits. After making this determination, Reliastar successfully renewed its motion to stay (pending this appeal) that portion of the district court's December 2010 order requiring it to award "own occupation" benefits. For her part, Mead attempted to obtain judicial review of Reliastar's denial of "any occupation" benefits by filing a motion to reopen in the district court. The district court denied the motion on the ground that it "lack[ed] jurisdiction to reopen th[e] case" while this appeal remained pending.
Mead moves to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, principally arguing that the district court's December 2010 decision is nonfinal because it did not resolve the amount of "own occupation" benefits to which she was entitled or her eligibility for "any occupation" benefits. Reliastar contends that the district court's decision is final because (1) the court conclusively determined Mead's eligibility for "own occupation" benefits, (2) calculating the amount of "own occupation" benefits owed to Mead is a "ministerial" task not subject to genuine dispute, and (3) Mead's eligibility for "any occupation" benefits can be analyzed separately from the other issues in this case. Reliastar also cites as evidence of finality the district court's directive to "close the case" and the entry of a separate judgment.
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we have jurisdiction over appeals from "final decisions" of the district court. We have yet to decide
We have observed the existence of these differing approaches, see Giraldo, 502 F.3d at 202; Viglietta v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 454 F.3d 378, 378-79 (2d Cir. 2006), but have never adopted one of our own because each time the issue arose, the challenged ERISA remand order was not appealable under any approach.
Although our prior cases have not adopted a specific analytical approach for determining the finality of ERISA remand orders, they provide us with three considerations that are instructive as we develop our own framework. First, we have repeatedly expressed what we might characterize as the default position that, under the general principles of finality, ERISA remand orders usually are not "final" because they "requir[e] further action" by the plan administrator, Nichols, 406 F.3d at 103-04, thus "creat[ing] a real danger of piecemeal appeals" if an immediate appeal were available, Nelson, 468 F.3d at 119. See also Giraldo, 502 F.3d at 202-03 (assuming that the ERISA remand order would be unappealable unless the approaches used by the Seventh or Ninth Circuits applied); Viglietta, 454 F.3d at 379-80 (same). Second, notwithstanding our default position, we have examined ERISA remand orders on a case-by-case basis to determine whether the particular facts presented indicate that a remand order may be appealable under an approach already established in a sister circuit. See Viglietta, 454 F.3d at 379 (indicating that it need not adopt the approaches used by the Seventh or Ninth Circuits because "the remand order here would not be appealable" under those approaches); see also Giraldo, 502 F.3d at 202-03 (same); Zervos, 277 F.3d at 644-46 (considering the "practical effect[s]" of a delayed appeal). Last, we have observed an important similarity between ERISA remand orders and orders remanding matters to administrative agencies — the practical reality that, like an administrative agency, an ERISA plan administrator that wishes to challenge a remand order may be unable to appeal after the proceedings on remand take place. See Crocco, 137 F.3d at 108-09 (citing Perales v. Sullivan, 948 F.2d 1348, 1353 (2d Cir.1991) (recognizing an exception to the finality requirement "when the agency to which the case is remanded seeks to appeal, and that agency would be unable to appeal after the proceedings on remand")).
Taking into consideration our prior case law and the various analytical approaches used by our sister circuits, we now hold that remands to ERISA plan administrators generally are not "final" because, in the ordinary case, they contemplate further proceedings by the plan administrator. See Nelson, 468 F.3d at 119; Nichols, 406 F.3d at 103-04. We decline, however, to adopt a hard-and-fast rule that such orders are never immediately appealable in recognition of the reality that, as exemplified by this case, remands to ERISA plan administrators may take on a number of permutations. Instead, as in all cases where our jurisdiction is questionable, we must examine the content of the particular ERISA remand order to determine its appealability. Accord Papotto, 731 F.3d at 272; Rekstad, 238 F.3d at 1263. Joining four of our sister circuits, we further hold that, to preserve an ERISA plan administrator's ability to obtain appellate review of a nonfinal remand order, we generally will interpret a district court's remand order as having retained jurisdiction over the case such that, after a determination by the plan administrator on
Under § 1291, a "final" decision is "one that conclusively determines the pending claims of all the parties to the litigation, leaving nothing for the court to do but execute its decision." Citizens Accord, Inc. v. Town of Rochester, N.Y., 235 F.3d 126, 128 (2d Cir.2000) (per curiam) (citing Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 467, 98 S.Ct. 2454, 57 L.Ed.2d 351 (1978)). "The purpose of this rule is to provide the parties with an opportunity for a single review of all the questions raised at the trial level and thereby to avoid the waste of time and the delay in reaching trial finality which ensue when piecemeal appeals are permitted." Nelson, 468 F.3d at 119 (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted).
"Finality is determined on the basis of pragmatic, not needlessly rigid pro forma, analysis." Fiataruolo v. United States, 8 F.3d 930, 937 (2d Cir.1993). In general, "[a]ll that is required [to confer appellate jurisdiction] is that there be some manifestation by the district court that it intends the decision to be its final act in the case." Nelson, 468 F.3d at 119 (internal quotation marks omitted). On the other hand, a district court's intent, standing alone, is not sufficient to confer finality upon every decision. See Henrietta D. v. Giuliani, 246 F.3d 176, 181 (2d Cir.2001) ("[A] district court's assertion of finality cannot deliver appellate jurisdiction to review a decision that is not otherwise `final' for purposes of § 1291."). Instead, the district court's intent "is relevant for purposes of § 1291 [only] when the court's rulings reveal that the action could be final and it therefore matters whether the trial judge contemplated further proceedings." Id. (emphasis in original); see also Dudley v. Penn-America Ins. Co., 313 F.3d 662, 668 (2d Cir.2002) (Sotomayor, J. concurring) ("The determination of whether a final judgment has been rendered is made by examining the record of the case both for the necessary elements of such a judgment ... and for the court's intent that its ruling represent the final disposition of the case."). Ultimately, "[a]ppealability turns on what has been ordered, not how it has been described" by the district court. Henrietta D., 246 F.3d at 181 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Applying these principles, the district court's December 2010 remand order is not final. First, by remanding to Reliastar the issue of Mead's eligibility for "any occupation" benefits without addressing the merits of that issue, the court's order did not "conclusively determine[]" Reliastar's liability for Mead's sole federal
Second, even if we could distinguish between Mead's requests for "own occupation" and "any occupation" benefits for purposes of our jurisdictional analysis, the district court's decision as to "own occupation" benefits would itself not be final because the court did not determine the amount of those benefits owed to Mead. Instead, the court remanded this issue for Reliastar to calculate the amount, explicitly recognizing when denying Reliastar's first stay motion that "there ha[d] been no monetary award in th[e] case" and that its December 2010 "judgment" did not "set out an amount that Reliastar [was] required to pay." Because the district court left unresolved the amount of relief, its December 2010 order was not final. See Henrietta D., 246 F.3d at 180-82 (declaratory judgment found not appealable where it "did nothing more than determine liability, leaving the measure of prospective relief for another day"); In re Fugazy Express, Inc., 982 F.2d 769, 775 (2d Cir.1992) ("An order granting summary judgment on the issue of liability, but requiring a calculation of damages, is not an appealable final order); see also Rekstad, 238 F.3d at 1262 ("[A] district court's grant of summary judgment to the plaintiff on an ERISA claim that [leaves] the question of damages unresolved [is] not a final appealable order.").
With respect to the above rule, Reliastar argues that it is entitled to application of the exception under which an order resolving liability but not damages is considered final when only "ministerial tasks relating to computation of damages remain[.]" In re Penn Traffic Co., 466 F.3d 75, 78 (2d Cir.2006). The "ministerial" designation, however, is "reserved for the case where an award can be executed after a simple arithmetic calculation or
The district court's directive to "close the case" and its subsequent entry of a separate "judgment" does not alter the conclusion that the December 2010 order is not final. As we already have observed, finality ultimately turns on the substance of the district court's order, such that "a district court's assertion of finality cannot deliver appellate jurisdiction to review a decision that is not otherwise `final' for purposes of § 1291." Henrietta D., 246 F.3d at 181. Where, as here, the substance of the remand order from which the appeal is taken leaves unresolved issues as to liability and prospective relief, the district court's entry of a separate judgment and its "directive to close the case [are] insufficient to vest this Court with jurisdiction under § 1291." Id. at 179-81 (internal quotation marks omitted); accord Young, 671 F.3d at 1215-16 (although the district court entered "what purported to be a final judgment," ERISA remand not "final" because the court "did not end [the plaintiff's] case and left unresolved her entitlement to benefits under the Plan"); Gerhardt v. Liberty Life Assurance Co., 574 F.3d 505, 511-12 (8th Cir.2009) (district court's direction to "terminat[e]" the case and its entry of a separate judgment did not render an ERISA remand order "final" where the court's order lacked a "clear and unequivocal manifestation ... that its order [was] the end of the case"); Graham v. Hartford Life & Accident Ins. Co., 501 F.3d 1153, 1161 (10th Cir.2007) (same).
Reliastar expresses concern that it will lose its future right to appeal the remand order unless we reverse the district court's "judgment closing the case." This concern is not unwarranted. For example, if, on
Petralia, 114 F.3d at 354; accord Dickens, 677 F.3d at 234 (adopting this rule); Young, 671 F.3d at 1216 (adopting this rule); Bowers, 365 F.3d at 537 (adopting this rule and noting that it "allow[s] either party to challenge the [plan administrator's] ensuing eligibility determination [on remand] by motion before the same [district] court").
We believe that this rule is a sensible one that does not run counter to ERISA's statutory text. Although ERISA authorizes various types of "civil action[s]" by specifying the permissible plaintiffs, defendants, claims, and remedies for each action, see generally 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a), it does not contain any provisions governing remands to plan administrators once those actions have been initiated, nor does it explain how judicial review of determinations made on remand is to occur, compare 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a), with 42 U.S.C. § 405(g) (authorizing "a civil action" to challenge a decision of the Commissioner of Social Security and defining the district court's power to remand and to review the Commissioner's decisions on remand). Thus, while ERISA, by its terms, may preclude a plan administrator from challenging its own determination by filing a separate civil action because plan administrators are not listed as permissible plaintiffs in § 1132(a), nothing in the statutory text prevents a plan administrator from seeking the entry of a final judgment after its determination on remand by filing a motion in a pending civil action. Once the court enters a final judgment, the plan administrator may then challenge the remand order on appeal from that judgment. See In re Barnet, 737 F.3d 238, 246 (2d Cir.2013) ("[A]n appeal from any ... final order[] opens the record and permits review of all rulings that led up to the judgment." (internal quotation marks omitted)).
For all of these reasons, the district court's December 2010 remand order is not "final" under the general principles of finality. As a result, it is immediately appealable only if the collateral order doctrine applies. That doctrine permits an immediate appeal of an otherwise nonfinal order if the order conclusively "resolve[s] important questions separate from the merits" that is "effectively unreviewable on appeal from the final judgment in the underlying action." Swint v. Chambers Cnty. Comm'n, 514 U.S. 35, 42, 115 S.Ct. 1203, 131 L.Ed.2d 60 (1995) (citing Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949)). The December 2010 order is not appealable under this doctrine because, among other reasons, the question that it resolved — whether Mead is eligible for "own occupation" benefits under the Plan — is central to the merits of the parties' dispute and, as we have discussed, may be appealed following the entry of a final judgment after the proceedings on remand. See Swint, 514 U.S. at 42, 115 S.Ct. 1203.
Reliastar argues that the district court's remand order would be appealable if we adopted the Ninth Circuit's approach. Applying its own precedents governing the finality of orders remanding matters to administrative agencies, the Ninth Circuit permits an immediate appeal of an otherwise nonfinal ERISA remand order if (1) the order "conclusively resolve[d] a separable
This case, however, does not require us to decide definitively whether Perales applies to ERISA remand orders because, even assuming it does, the remand order here would not be appealable. Perales holds that although "[a] district court's remand to an administrative agency ... keeps the case alive and hence is ordinarily not appealable," there is an exception to this rule "when the agency to which the case is remanded seeks to appeal, and that agency would be unable to appeal after the proceedings on remand." 948 F.2d at 1353; see also Occidental Petroleum Corp. v. SEC, 873 F.2d 325, 330 (D.C.Cir.1989) (collecting cases and noting that nearly every circuit has adopted the general rule that agency remand orders are interlocutory and that most circuits have adopted the above exception to this rule). As we have discussed above, Reliastar will be able to obtain appellate review of the December 2010 remand order after the completion of the proceedings on remand by moving in the district court for the entry of a final judgment and then appealing that judgment. Accordingly, we leave for another day the question of whether the Perales rule permits an immediate appeal in circumstances when the district court's remand order cannot be interpreted as having retained jurisdiction, leaving a separate civil action as the only mechanism to challenge the results of the proceedings on remand. Cf. Somoza, 538 F.3d at 113 n. 5.
As a final point, Reliastar argues that the district court's December 2010 remand order is immediately appealable under the Seventh Circuit's approach. The Seventh Circuit analyzes the finality of ERISA remand orders by applying the statute governing remands to the Social Security Administration, 42 U.S.C. § 405(g). See Perlman, 195 F.3d at 978-79. As explained in Perlman, pursuant to the fourth and sixth sentences of that statute, the district court may either (1) enter "a judgment affirming, modifying, or reversing the decision of the Commissioner of Social Security, with or without remanding the cause for a rehearing" (a "sentence-four remand"); or (2) remand the case to the Commissioner for the consideration of new evidence without entering a judgment as to the merits of the Commissioner's decision (a "sentence-six remand"). Id. at 978 (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 405(g)). In accordance with the Supreme Court's decision in Sullivan v. Finkelstein, the Seventh Circuit noted that, without exception, sentence-four remands are final and appealable
Although the district court's December 2010 order would be appealable under the Seventh Circuit's approach because it overturned Reliastar's decision that Mead is not eligible for "own occupation" benefits and is thus akin to a sentence-four remand, see Mead, 755 F.Supp.2d at 542, we expressly decline to adopt the analogy between ERISA and Social Security remand orders espoused by the Seventh Circuit. The Supreme Court's holding in Finkelstein that sentence four remands are final and immediately appealable is based on the specific language of 42 U.S.C. § 405(g), which delineates "a `class of orders' that Congress [has] made `appealable under § 1291.'" Forney v. Apfel, 524 U.S. 266, 270, 118 S.Ct. 1984, 141 L.Ed.2d 269 (1998) (quoting Finkelstein, 496 U.S. at 628, 110 S.Ct. 2658). The class of appealable orders created by § 405(g) represents an exception that swallows the generally accepted rule that remand orders are interlocutory, rendering the vast majority of such orders appealable. See Forney, 524 U.S. at 270, 118 S.Ct. 1984 (noting that neither § 405(g) nor Finkelstein permits an inference that a remand order "could be `final' for purposes of appeal only when the Government seeks to appeal" or that "`finality' turns on ... the availability (or lack of availability) of an avenue for appeal from the different, later, agency determination that might emerge after remand"); Shalala v. Schaefer, 509 U.S. 292, 297 n. 2, 113 S.Ct. 2625, 125 L.Ed.2d 239 (1993) (noting that a sentence-six remand, which is the only type of interlocutory remand under § 405(g), "may be ordered in only two situations: where the Secretary requests a remand before answering the complaint, or where new, material evidence is adduced that was for good cause not presented before the agency"). Because ERISA has no provision comparable to § 405(g), analogies to that subsection and the cases interpreting it have no bearing on the appealability of ERISA remand orders, and we decline to expand our jurisdiction by use of such analogy.
We hold that, under the circumstances of this case, the district court's December 2010 remand order is nonfinal under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Mead's motion to dismiss is GRANTED, and the appeal is DISMISSED for lack of jurisdiction.
Mead, 755 F.Supp.2d at 519 (citations and footnote omitted).