MISSOURI'S 10-YEAR TIME LIMIT APPLIED TO ERISA CLAIMS.

Missouri's unusually long 10-year statute of limitations applies to claims filed under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act against a self-funded employee benefits plan, the Eight U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Feb. 6.

Writing for the three-member panel in Harris v. The Epoch Group et al. (03-2006), Judge Kermit E. Bye said it was bound by a 1991 Eighth Circuit precedent in Johnson v. State Mutual Life Assurance saying the applicable Missouri statute was the one with a 10-year time limit.

Plaintiff Jerry Harris fell from a tree, breaking his foot and leg, in 1994. He made a claim for benefits under a self-funded established by his wife's employer, a hospital, and governed by ERISA. The plan denied his claim in 1995, but he didn't file suit until 2002.

The defendants removed the case to federal court and moved to dismiss it as time-barred.

The plan's language said any action had to be brought within three years "or such longer period as required by applicable state laws."

A federal judge ruled Harris's claim was time-barred by federal common law. Harris appealed and prevailed.

"Nothing in the federal common law prohibits an ERISA plan from contractually incorporating a state statute of limitations period," Judge Bye wrote.

"Neither is this a matter of federal law preempting state law. Instead, this is simply a matter of straightforward contract interpretation."