Case: Health Care & Benefits/Attorneys’ Fees (N.D. Okla.)

A federal district court in Oklahoma denied a Schlumberger Technology Corporation employee’s motion for attorneys’ fees and costs in this ERISA action against Schlumberger Group Welfare Benefits Plan, challenging the denial of his claim for short-term disability benefits, which he filed after the court remanded the case for further administrative proceedings. The court said that a remand order can qualify as some degree of success on the merits in some cases, thus possibly justifying an award of attorneys’ fees, but that the remand order in this case was strictly a procedural ruling that can’t support an award.