834
Opinion of the Court
(available in Clerk of Court's case file). Deference is due that view.
Plan administrators, of course, may not arbitrarily refuse to credit a claimant's reliable evidence, including the opinions of a treating physician. But, we hold, courts have no warrant to require administrators automatically to accord special weight to the opinions of a claimant's physician; nor may courts impose on plan administrators a discrete burden of explanation when they credit reliable evidence that conflicts with a treating physician's evaluation.4 The Court of Appeals therefore erred when it employed a treating physician rule lacking Department of Labor endorsement in holding that Nord was entitled to summary judgment.
* * *
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
4 Nord asserts that there are two treating physician rules: a "procedural" rule, which requires a hearing officer to explain why she rejected the opinions of a treating physician, and a "substantive" rule, which requires that "more weight" be given to the medical opinions of a treating physician. Brief for Respondent 12-13 (internal quotation marks omitted). In this case, Nord contends, the Court of Appeals applied only the "procedural" version of the rule. Id., at 13. We are not certain that Nord's reading of the Court of Appeals decision is correct. See 296 F. 3d, at 831 (faulting the Plan for, inter alia, having "[n]o evidence . . . that Nord's treating physicians considered inappropriate factors in making their diagnosis or that Nord's physicians lacked the requisite expertise to draw their medical conclusions"). At any rate, for the reasons explained in this opinion, we conclude that ERISA does not support judicial imposition of a treating physician rule, whether labeled "procedural" or "substantive."
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