Nichols v. Acxiom Corp., No. 12-4047 (8th Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff, the surviving spouse of an Acxiom employee, filed suit for accidental death benefits under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. 1001 et seq. On appeal, Unicare appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of plaintiff. The court held that the district court correctly applied an abuse-of-discretion standard of review; the district court correctly found that UniCare erred in denying coverage for accidental death benefits where all of the evidence indicated that the spouse's death was the unexpected result of ingested prescribed medications; the district court correctly found that UniCare had not proven that the exclusion should be used to deny coverage; and the fee award was reasonable. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.
Court Description: Civil case - ERISA. The district court did not err in determining that the Administrator erred in denying benefits as all of the evidence indicated the insured's death was unexpected result of ingesting prescribed medications and not an intentional act; district court did not err in concluding the Administrator had failed to prove that an intoxication exclusion applied; attorneys' fees award affirmed.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.