BATON ROUGE – A Mississippi man alleges his insurance company claimed it overpaid him in disability benefits after he began receiving benefits from Social Security and stopped paying them.
Joey G. Brasseal filed a complaint on May 13 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana against Matrix Absence Management Inc. and Reliance Standard Life Insurance Co., alleging that they violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
According to the complaint, the plaintiff alleges that he has suffered damages for not receiving his benefits under the long-term disability plan. The plaintiff holds Matrix Absence Management Inc. and Reliance Standard Life Insurance Co. responsible because the defendants allegedly ceased payment of his benefits and began collecting retroactive offset by withholding his benefits after the plaintiff began receiving Social Security benefits, failed and reused to pay his benefits and failed to provide an accounting as to the calculation of the offset to show when his benefits should resume.
The plaintiff requests a trial by jury and seeks an award of benefits to which he is entitled, plus interest, penalties and attorney's fees. He is represented by Stephen M. Irving of Steve Irving LLC in Baton Rouge.
U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana Case number 3:16-cv-00324