Jesse M. Bowers v. Sheet Metal Workers’ National Pension Fund

*The Honorable Peter C. Economus, United States District Judge for
the Northern District of Ohio, sitting by designation.
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RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
Pursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206
ELECTRONIC CITATION: 2004 FED App. 0109P (6th Cir.)
File Name: 04a0109p.06
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
_________________
JESSE M. BOWERS,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
SHEET METAL WORKERS’
NATIONAL PENSION FUND,
Defendant-Appellant.
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No. 02-6290
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Tennessee at Nashville.
No. 01-00488—Todd J. Campbell, District Judge.
Submitted: March 16, 2004
Decided and Filed: April 16, 2004
Before: NORRIS and COLE, Circuit Judges;
ECONOMUS, District Judge.*
2 Bowers v. Sheet Metal Workers’
Nat’l Pension Fund
No. 02-6290
_________________
COUNSEL
ON BRIEF: Stephen Mark Rosenblatt, Jonathan J. Boyles,
SHEET METAL WORKERS NATIONAL PENSION
FUND, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellant. Peter T. Skeie,
PETER SKEIE, ATTORNEY AT LAW, Nashville,
Tennessee, for Appellee.
_________________
OPINION
_________________
ALAN E. NORRIS, Circuit Judge. This appeal presents a
question of first impression for this court: In a case premised
upon a claim for disability benefits under a pension plan
governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act
of 1974, 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq. (“ERISA”), is an order by
a district court remanding the case to the plan administrator
for a determination of the claimant’s eligibility a final
decision under 28 U.S.C. § 1291? Because we conclude that
such an order is not a final decision, we dismiss for lack of
appellate jurisdiction.
I.
Plaintiff Jesse M. Bowers brought suit against his pension
provider, defendant Sheet Metal Workers’ National Pension
Fund (“NPF”), challenging its determination that he was
ineligible for disability benefits under the pension plan.
Bowers moved for judgment on the administrative record,
contending that NPF’s determination was arbitrary and
capricious because it did not apply the definition of disability
specified in the plan. The district court agreed and granted
Bowers’ motion for judgment on the administrative record.

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No. 02-6290 Bowers v. Sheet Metal Workers’
Nat’l Pension Fund
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After requesting and receiving further briefing from the
parties on the question of a remedy, the court issued an order
remanding Bowers’ claim to NPF’s plan administrator for a
determination of Bowers’ eligibility for benefits under the
correct disability definition. The order was stamped with a
statement indicating that it was “entered on the docket in
compliance with Rule 58 and/or Rule 79(a).” NPF attempts
to appeal from this order.
II.
On appeal, NPF asserts that this court has jurisdiction under
28 U.S.C. § 1291, which grants courts of appeal subject
matter jurisdiction over final decisions of district courts.
Bowers argues that we lack subject matter jurisdiction
because an order remanding a claim to a plan administrator
for a determination of the merits of the claim does not
constitute a final decision. We agree with Bowers.
Typically, “where assessment of damages or awarding of
other relief remains to be resolved, [an order is not]
considered to be ‘final’ within the meaning of 28 U.S.C.
§ 1291.” Liberty Mut. Ins. Co. v. Wetzel, 424 U.S. 737, 744
(1976). The district court’s order merely vacated NPF’s
eligibility determination; it did not resolve the ultimate
question of whether Bowers is eligible for benefits.
Accordingly, the order would not typically be considered a
final decision.
NPF argues that the order constituted a final decision
because future circumstances may prevent NPF from
challenging it. Specifically, NPF contends that if Bowers
does not challenge the eligibility decision that NPF renders
following the remand, it would not be able to challenge the
order in a later proceeding because it would be challenging its
own eligibility determination. We share NPF’s concern, but
we do not believe that it renders the district court’s order
appealable.
4 Bowers v. Sheet Metal Workers’
Nat’l Pension Fund
No. 02-6290
1Two other circuits have concluded that in cases where a district
court explicitly retains jurisdiction over a case it remands to a plan
administrator, the ord er rem anding the case does not constitute a final
decision. See Rekstad v. First Bank Sys., Inc., 238 F.3d 125 9, 12 62 (10th
The First Circuit was faced with a similar situation in
Petralia v. AT&T Global Information Solutions, Inc., 114
F.3d 352 (1st Cir. 1997). In that case, the district court had
remanded a benefits claim to an ERISA plan administrator to
examine evidence demonstrating eligibility. The First Circuit
concluded that the order did not constitute a final decision
because it left the merits undecided. However, to prevent the
plan administrator from losing the opportunity to challenge
the trial court’s decision in a later proceeding, the court
concluded that the remand order had to be interpreted to
allow either party to challenge the ensuing eligibility
determination by motion before the same court:
Ordinarily implicit in a federal district court’s order of
remand to a plan fiduciary is an understanding that after
a new decision by the plan fiduciary, a party seeking
judicial review in the district court may do so by a timely
motion filed in the same civil action, and is not required
to commence a new civil action. To avoid any
misunderstanding that might otherwise occur, we state
that we interpret the order of the district court in this case
as having retained jurisdiction, in this sense, to hear and
decide any timely motion for judicial review filed after
further proceedings before the plan fiduciary. This is so
regardless of whether the case is formally held open or
instead administratively closed on the district court
docket in the meantime.
Id. at 354. We interpret the district court’s order in the case
at bar in the same way, permitting either party to challenge
the eligibility determination that the plan administrator
renders on remand.1

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No. 02-6290 Bowers v. Sheet Metal Workers’
Nat’l Pension Fund
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Cir. 2001) (stating that the district court “expressly stated that either p arty
may obtain review of the administrator’s determinatio n simply by filing
a motio n”); Shannon v. Jack Eckerd Corp., 55 F.3d 561 , 563 (11th Cir.
1995) (stating that the district court “retain[ed] jurisdiction, . . .
indicat[ing] that further action is req uired”).
We note that two other circuits have issued decisions that
come to the opposite conclusion regarding the appealability
of orders remanding benefits determinations to ERISA plan
administrators. See Hensley v. Northwest Permanente P.C.
Retirement Plan & Trust, 258 F.3d 986 (9th Cir. 2001);
Perlman v. Swiss Bank Corp. Comprehensive Disability Prot.
Plan, 195 F.3d 975 (7th Cir. 2000). Those decisions conclude
that, because orders remanding administrative benefit
determinations to administrative agencies are appealable,
orders remanding pension benefit determinations to ERISA
plan administrators should be appealable too. Hensley,
258 F.3d at 993-94; Perlman, 195 F.3d at 979-80. In
Perlman, the Seventh Circuit relied specifically upon the
similarity between remands to plan administrators in ERISA
cases and remands to the Commissioner of Social Security in
social security cases. Perlman, 195 F.3d at 979. However, as
noted in Perlman, 42 U.S.C. § 405(g) specifically grants
courts of appeals jurisdiction over orders remanding social
security claims to the Commissioner. Id. at 978. No statutory
language permits similar appeals under ERISA. The
existence of language authorizing appeals from remand orders
under the social security laws implies that those orders would
not constitute final decisions under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. In the
absence of a statutory grant of jurisdiction, this court declines
to expand its jurisdiction by analogy.
III.
For the foregoing reasons, the appeal is dismissed for lack
of jurisdiction.

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