ERISA Court Dismisses Long-Term Disability Underpayment Suit as Time-Barred Under Clear Repudiation Rule

In Kendall v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and Bank of America N.A., as Plan Administrator, No. 2:26-CV-950-KCH-KRH, 2026 WL 2299338 (M.D. Fla. Aug. 11, 2026), the Middle District of Florida granted in part and denied in part the Defendants’ motion to dismiss an ERISA action in which Plaintiff, proceeding pro se, alleged she had been underpaid her long-term disability benefits for over fifteen years.

What did the Plaintiff allege?

Plaintiff participated in a long-term disability plan administered by Bank of America, with MetLife responsible for determining benefits. She became disabled in 2009 and elected benefits worth sixty percent of her annual pay, but alleged that each monthly check reflected only forty percent of her salary, resulting in roughly fifteen years of underpayment and a loss approaching a quarter-million dollars. She sued under ERISA to recover the lost benefits and for breach of fiduciary duty.

Why did the court find the recovery-of-benefits claim time-barred?

ERISA supplies no statute of limitations for benefit recovery claims, so courts apply the plan’s contractual limitations period if one exists. The court first addressed whether it could even consider the plan document at the motion-to-dismiss stage, since the Defendants had attached it to their motion. Applying the incorporation-by-reference doctrine, the court found all three requirements satisfied because the plan was repeatedly referenced in the complaint, was central to the claim, and was of undisputed authenticity.

The court found the plan required proof of loss within ninety days and suit within three years and sixty days of the date proof was required. Because Plaintiff conceded she had received benefit payments since 2011, the court reasoned her proof was filed by 2011 at the latest, giving her until 2015 to sue. She filed more than a decade later. Plaintiff argued that the plan’s language excusing delayed proof if given “as soon as reasonably possible” created a factual question about accrual, but the court rejected this because her receipt of benefits necessarily meant proof had already been filed.

The court also rejected Plaintiff’s argument that her claim accrued only when she recently discovered the underpayments. Applying the Eleventh Circuit’s “clear repudiation rule” from Witt v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., the court held that after the first year of reduced checks, Plaintiff had reason to know her benefits selection had been unfulfilled. The court found the twenty-percent shortfall stark enough to put her on notice, citing the Third Circuit’s reasoning in Miller v. Fortis Benefits Insurance Co. that a simple percentage-of-salary calculation should alert a claimant to underpayment upon initial receipt. The court also noted the Eleventh Circuit’s recognition in Ahanotu that years of underpayment can constitute a clear and continuing repudiation even without a formal denial letter. The court declined to consider new factual allegations raised for the first time in Plaintiff’s opposition brief and dismissed the recovery-of-benefits claim with prejudice.

Why did the breach-of-fiduciary-duty claim survive, at least in part?

The court dismissed the Section 1132(a)(3) breach-of-fiduciary-duty claim as duplicative. Under Eleventh Circuit precedent, an ERISA plaintiff who has an adequate remedy under Section 1132(a)(1)(B) cannot alternatively proceed with an equitable-relief claim under Section 1132(a)(3), which functions as a “safety net.” Because the fiduciary-duty claim incorporated the same factual allegations underlying the recovery count, it did not plead a factually distinct claim. The court noted the time-barred status of the benefits claim did not change this result, since what matters is whether an adequate remedy existed when the cause of action arose, not whether it remains viable. However, because Plaintiff’s opposition raised new allegations regarding the Defendants’ withholding of information that might support a viable failure-to-inform theory, the court dismissed this claim without prejudice and granted her fourteen days to file an amended complaint.