Thomas Sturges v. Hy-Vee Employee Benefit Plan and Trust, Thomas Sturges v. Hy-Vee Employee Benefit Plan and Trust

Thomas Sturges, a Hy-Vee employee, brought this action against the Hy-Vee Employee Benefit Plan and Trust (Hy-Vee), the administrator of an ERISA plan, after Hy-Vee denied health care coverage for Sturges’s newborn daughter, Andrea, under Sturges’s preexisting dependent coverage. Recognizing the plan gives Hy-Vee discretionary authority to construe the plan, the district court reviewed Hy-Vee’s plan interpretation under the deferential standard of review delineated by the Supreme Court in Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch, 489 U.S. 101, 111, 115, 109 S.Ct. 948, 954, 956, 103 L.Ed.2d 80…