WILCOX v. RELIANCE STANDARD LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, 1999 U.S. App. LEXIS 5027 (4th Cir. Mar 23, 1999) (unpublished)-The Plaintiff claimed that his fibromyalgia caused him to be totally and permanently disabled. Applying the "modified abuse-of-discretion" standard identified in Ellis v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 126 F.3d 228 (4th Cir. 1997), the Fourth Circuit affirmed the denial of benefits.

The Fourth Circuit determined that the phrase "submits satisfactory proof of Total Disability to us" confers discretion on the plan  administrator. The Circuit court also affirmed that the conflict of interest of Reliance acting as a fiduciary of the plan's beneficiaries and the plan's insurers resulted in the standard of review being the modified abuse-of-discretion standard. Court affirmed the district court's denial of benefits because the Plan required the illness to have begun while the Plan covered Plaintiff. The Plaintiff had a 20 year history of fibromyalgia. The Fourth Circuit noted that throughout the course of this litigation, Reliance has been unable to inform Mr. Wilcox what type of evidence would have satisfied their request and Reliance's argument attempting to distinguish between objective evidence that Mr. Wilcox is totally disabled and objective evidence that he has fibromyalgia seems to us to be hair splitting of the highest order. Though other circuits have addressed somewhat similar requests for objective proof and determined that in the context of fibromyalgia, the request is unreasonable, we need not reach this troubling issue here. See, e.g., Mitchell v. Eastman Kodak Co., 113 F.3d 433 (3rd Cir. 1997).