Gabe McCool v. Life Insurance Company of North America; Apple, Inc.

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
GABE MCCOOL,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF
NORTH AMERICA; APPLE, INC.,
Defendants-Appellees.
No. 18-56529
D.C. No.
2:17-cv-07766-RGK-JEM
MEMORANDUM*
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
R. Gary Klausner, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted June 3, 2020
Pasadena, California
Before: RAWLINSON and N.R. SMITH, Circuit Judges, and KORMAN,**
District Judge.
Appellant Gabe McCool (McCool) appeals the district court’s judgment in
favor of Appellee Life Insurance Company of North America’s (LINA) following
FILED
APR 2 2021
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
** The Honorable Edward R. Korman, United States District Judge for
the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation.

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a bench trial. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and review the district
court’s factual findings following a bench trial for clear error. See Stormans, Inc.
v. Wiesman, 794 F.3d 1064, 1075 (9th Cir. 2015). The district court’s
interpretation of the Employee Retirement Security Act (ERISA) and conclusions
of law are reviewed de novo. See id.
McCool asserts that LINA wrongfully denied his requested disability
benefits under his employer’s ERISA benefit plan. In the normal course, a court
would review the policy to determine the definition of “sedentary” or suggestion of
what definition to follow. However, this policy does not contain a definition.
Thus, the district court properly applied the standard from Armani v. Northwestern
Mut. Life Ins. Co., 840 F.3d 1159 (9th Cir. 2016), which (1) imposes the burden
upon the claimant to prove by a preponderance of the evidence “that he was
disabled under the terms of the plan”; and (2) adopts the “consistent” interpretation
of “ERISA law” that an individual is unable to perform “any occupation” under a
disability policy if that individual “cannot sit for more than four hours in an eight-
hour workday.” Id. at 1163 (citation omitted).
The district court did not clearly err in finding that McCool failed to meet
his burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that he could not sit for
four hours a day. Three doctors opined that McCool could sit “frequently.”
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“Frequently is defined as between 2.5 to 5.5 hours in an 8-hour workday.” The
district court found that McCool failed to establish that he cannot sit for four hours
a day “despite repeated findings that he can sit frequently.” This finding was not
clearly erroneous in light of the record evidence, and was consistent with our
analysis in Armani.
AFFIRMED.
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