832
Opinion of the Court
cf. Milwaukee v. Illinois, 451 U. S. 304, 317-332 (1981) (be-cause Congress had enacted a comprehensive regulatory program dealing with discharge of pollutants into the Nation's waters, the State could not maintain a federal common-law nuisance action against the city based on the latter's pollution of Lake Michigan).
The question whether a treating physician rule would "increas[e] the accuracy of disability determinations" under ERISA plans, as the Ninth Circuit believed it would, Regula, 266 F. 3d, at 1139, moreover, seems to us one the Legislature or superintending administrative agency is best positioned to address. As compared to consultants retained by a plan, it may be true that treating physicians, as a rule, "ha[ve] a greater opportunity to know and observe the patient as an individual." Ibid. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Nor do we question the Court of Appeals' concern that physicians repeatedly retained by benefits plans may have an "incentive to make a finding of 'not disabled' in order to save their employers money and to preserve their own consulting arrangements." Id., at 1143. But the assumption that the opinions of a treating physician warrant greater credit than the opinions of plan consultants may make scant sense when, for example, the relationship between the claimant and the treating physician has been of short duration, or when a specialist engaged by the plan has expertise the treating physician lacks. And if a consultant engaged by a plan may have an "incentive" to make a finding of "not disabled," so a treating physician, in a close case, may favor a finding of "disabled." Intelligent resolution of the question whether routine deference to the opinion of a claimant's treating physician would yield more accurate disability determinations, it thus appears, might be aided by empirical investigation of the kind courts are ill equipped to conduct.
Finally, and of prime importance, critical differences between the Social Security disability program and ERISA benefit plans caution against importing a treating physician
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007