to which the benefits administrator must exercise discretion in the discharge of his duties is likewise a significant factor in determining a question of ERISA preemption because it is indicative of the complexity of the benefit program. See O’Connor, 251 F.3d at 267 (“The determination of what constitutes an ERISA plan thus turns most often on the degree of an employer’s discretion in administering the plan.”); Bogue, 976 F.2d at 1323 (ruling that a plan requiring “case-by-case, discretionary application” of the terms required an administrative scheme, and thus brought the benefits plan within the scope of ERISA even though the term of the employer’s obligation to pay was short and the number of participants was small); see also Rodowicz, 192 F.3d at 171; Belanger, 71 F.3d at 455 (<HOLDING>). As such, this factor relates to both the
holding benefit program that entailed a purely mechanical determination of eligibility and did not require any discretionary judgment on the part of the administrator was not an erisa plan holding that district courts order remanding an erisa benefits determination to a plan administrator was nonfinal and therefore not appealable after the remand to plan administrator plan participant still could appeal the district courts decision that erisa preempted her state law claim and if successful she would be able to pursue punitive damage holding that erisa does not preempt the plaintiffs claim that the erisa plan administrator is liable for medical malpractice where the plaintiff premised the claim solely on state law and did not invoke the erisa plan holding that a denial of benefits will not be reviewed de novo where the language of an erisa plan gives the administrator or fiduciary discretionary authority to determine eligibility for benefits or to construe the terms of the plan holding that plan administrator of an erisa health plan did not have to anticipate the confusion of a plan participant