Sun Life Defeats LTD Claim as Time-Barred: How a Policy’s Choice-of-Law Clause Determined the Limitations Period

In Gordon v. Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada, No. 2:25-CV-11132-TGB-KGA (E.D. Mich. Mar. 31, 2026), United States District Judge Terrence G. Berg granted Sun Life’s motion to dismiss an ERISA long-term disability (“LTD”) claim, finding it time-barred under a three-year contractual limitations provision in the group policy. This decision from the Eastern District of Michigan demonstrates how a group policy’s choice-of-law provision can determine which state’s law governs the limitations period for an ERISA disability claim — and why filing deadline calculations must begin with the plan’s own terms, not the forum state’s statute of limitations.

Gordon sustained injuries in a March 2019 traffic accident and was subsequently diagnosed with a diffuse traumatic brain injury, temporomandibular joint dysfunction, cervicalgia, and several other conditions. He alleged he was unable to return to work and filed a claim for LTD benefits under a group policy issued by Sun Life to his employer, Prime Healthcare Services. Sun Life denied benefits. The opinion does not disclose when Gordon actually submitted his claim, when Sun Life issued a final denial, or whether Gordon pursued the plan’s internal appeal process. What the court’s analysis does establish is that Gordon did not file suit until March 2025 — more than fifteen months after the latest possible deadline under the plan’s three-year contractual limitations period.

Gordon’s complaint alleged three counts: breach of contract under Michigan common law, a denial-of-benefits claim under ERISA § 502(a)(1)(B), and breach of fiduciary duty under ERISA § 502(a)(3). The court dismissed the state law breach of contract claim as preempted. Because Gordon expressly sought to recover LTD benefits under an ERISA-governed plan, the claim duplicated the ERISA civil enforcement remedy and was therefore precluded under Aetna Health Inc. v. Davila, 542 U.S. 200 (2004). Gordon did not contest preemption.

The central dispute was whether the plan’s three-year contractual limitations provision was enforceable. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”), 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq., does not provide an express statute of limitations for benefit claims. In the Sixth Circuit, courts apply the most analogous state statute of limitations — in Michigan, a six-year period for breach of contract — unless the plan contains an enforceable contractual limitations provision. Under Heimeshoff v. Hartford Life & Accident Insurance Co., 571 U.S. 99 (2013), courts must enforce such a provision unless it is unreasonably short or a controlling statute prevents it from taking effect. Under the plan’s terms, the Proof of Claim was required to be submitted to Sun Life by December 16, 2019 (accounting for the 180-day elimination period plus 90 days), with an outside deadline of December 16, 2020. The three-year contractual limitations period therefore ran at the latest until December 16, 2023. Gordon filed in March 2025.

Gordon argued that Michigan law applied as the law of the forum state, and that Michigan Administrative Code Rule 500.2212 voided the shorter contractual period as an impermissible shortening of the limitations period. Sun Life countered that the policy’s choice-of-law clause required application of California law, under which the three-year provision was enforceable.

The court applied the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 187, which the Sixth Circuit uses when Michigan is the forum state and a contract contains a choice-of-law clause. The Restatement’s first step asks whether the parties could have resolved the disputed issue by an explicit contractual provision. If they could, the chosen state’s law governs with no exceptions. Because ERISA permits parties to contract for a specific limitations period so long as it is reasonable, the court found that the parties could have — and did — resolve the issue expressly through the policy’s limitations provision. That finding ended the choice-of-law inquiry. Gordon’s arguments that California lacked a substantial relationship to the parties and that applying California law would contravene Michigan public policy were relevant only under the Restatement’s second step, which the court found inapplicable.

The court also rejected Gordon’s challenge to the provision’s reasonableness. Three-year contractual limitations periods have been upheld repeatedly in the Sixth Circuit, and Gordon offered no argument that the period was unreasonable under California, Michigan, or federal law independent of his reliance on Rule 500.2212.

That reliance failed for two reasons. First, the court questioned whether Rule 500.2212 applies to employer-sponsored group LTD coverage at all, noting that the rule is directed at personal insurance policies underwritten for personal, family, or household use, and that courts have declined to extend it to commercial insurance contracts. Second, Rule 500.2212 applies only to policies “issued, advertised, or delivered” in Michigan. The Sun Life policy was issued to Prime Healthcare Services and delivered in California. The court held that because the policy was not issued, delivered, or advertised in Michigan, Rule 500.2212 did not apply — even though Gordon lived in Michigan. The court noted that the Sixth Circuit has previously declined to extend similar Michigan regulatory requirements to group policies issued outside the state, and that the court had given Gordon an opportunity to amend his complaint to allege facts bringing the policy within Rule 500.2212’s reach, which he declined to do.

With no controlling statute to override the provision and no basis to find it unreasonable, the court enforced the three-year contractual limitations period and dismissed Gordon’s complaint with prejudice.