Lang v. Aetna Life Insur. Co., 196 F.3d 1102  (10th Cir. 1999)

Lang v. Aetna Life Insur. Co., 196 F.3d 1102  (10th Cir. 1999)-This court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Lang’s suit for recovery of long-term disability benefits as time-barred.  Lang first challenged the district court’s choice of the most closely analogous statute of limitations under state law.  Although Utah had two statutes of limitations that were analogous to plaintiff's claim, a three-year and a six-year, the court chose the former because it was specific to insurance contracts rather than contracts in general.  This court denied Lang’s second argument that in borrowing the three-year period, the court should also borrow related tolling provisions.  Next, this court found that the language “must be commenced within three years after the inception of the loss” is correctly interpreted to mean the loss relating to the insurer’s alleged breach, not the initial personal injury.  Finally, this court denied that a statute of limitations runs from each unpaid monthly benefit, since this would create the incongruous result that “her claim would have an indefinite lifespan.”  Thus the Tenth Circuit chose not to follow the Ninth Circuit’s rolling accrual rule set out in Nikaido v. The Centennial Life Insurance Company, 42 F.3d 557 (9th Cir. 1994).

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