METROPOLITAN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY V. GLENN: WILL THE SUPREME COURT DECISION REDUCE CONFUSION AFTER FIRESTONE?

A recent report to the United States Congress indicated that about 131 million Americans are currently enrolled in employee benefit plans which fall under the jurisdiction of the Employee Retirement Income and Security Act of 1974 ( ERISA). Some plans are structured so that the plan administrator will be paying benefits out of the firm's profits. The possibility exists that the administrator may be swayed to decide in favor of the company in an effort to protect the financial health of the company which employs him. Recently, in Metropolitan Life Insurance Company v. Glenn, the Supreme Court addressed the questions of whether a plan administrator that pays benefits out of company profits is acting under a conflict of interest, and if so, how the conflict of interest should be taken into account upon review by a court. Prior to the Supreme Court's decision in Glenn, the circuit courts had been employing a variety of approaches in taking this apparent conflict into account. This note begins by providing an overview of the areas of trust law impacting the Court's decision and then reviews the case-law prior to the Supreme Court decision. The note then discusses the decision in Glenn and the case law that has developed following the Court's decision. This comment argues that the Supreme Court made the correct decision by holding that this scenario did constitute a conflict of interest, and by allowing the circuit courts to take the conflict into account by weighing it among a variety of other factors.