Tremain v. Bell Industries, Inc.,  196 F.3d 970 (9^th Cir. 1999)-Tremain was a General Sales Manager for Bell Industries. In 1990, after she became unable to work due to chronic and severe pain, she filed a claim for disability benefits with MetLife, the insurer and claims administrator of the Bell Plan. MetLife paid benefits for over four years, but then requested medical case management reviews and a vocational assessments.  On January 31, 1996, MetLife notified Tremain that it would terminate her disability benefits effective February 29, 1996, based on its finding that she no longer met the plan's definition of “total disability.”

Tremain appealed, informing MetLife that the definition of “total disability” listed in MetLife's termination letter was the definition in the Bell & Howell plan, not the Bell Plan in which she was a participant. The Bell Plan's definition of "Total Disability" had more generous provisions in that it also provided that if a participant's earning capacity decreased by fifty percent, then she was considered "Totally Disabled." Tremain supplemented her appeal with additional documentation from her treating physicians that she was unable to work at all.

This court found that the district court chose an inappropriate standard of review when it ignored the conflict of interest present where MetLife both funded the Bell Plan and acted as the plan's administrator. Where there is a conflict of interest, evidence outside the administrative record may be considered, and a less deferential version of “abuse of discretion” may be appropriate: “if the program participant presents ‘material, probative  evidence, beyond the mere fact of the apparent conflict, tending to show that the fiduciary's self interest caused a breach of the administrator's fiduciary obligations to the beneficiary,’ a rebuttable presumption arises in favor of the participant.”