This Court has repeatedly held that when an
ERISA plan expressly confers upon the plan
administrator discretion to interpret its terms, that
interpretation should stand unless arbitrary and
capricious. See Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch,
489 U.S. 101 (1989); Metro. Life Ins. Co. v. Glenn,
554 U.S. 105 (2008); Conkright v. Frommert, 559
U.S. 506 (2010). In declining to defer to the
reasonableness of the Colgate plan administrator's
interpretation of key plan provisions, the Second
Circuit departed from this line of cases and deepened
two separate circuit splits. The questions presented
are:

1. Whether the Second Circuit erred in holding,
contrary to decisions of the Seventh Circuit, that it
must disregard all objective extrinsic evidence of the
reasonableness of an ERISA plan administrator's
interpretation of plan terms if the court views the
plan terms as unambiguous within the four corners
of the plan.

2. Whether the Second Circuit erred in holding,
contrary to decisions of the Ninth and Tenth
Circuits, that an ERISA plan administrator's
reasonable interpretation of plan terms receives no
deference if the plan terms at issue involve actuarial
assumptions used to determine a plan participant's
benefits.

Whether the Second Circuit erred in holding that it must disregard all objective extrinsic evidence of the reasonableness of an ERISA plan administrator's interpretation of plan terms if the court views the plan terms as unambiguous