No, that’s not law of the case

The appellant in North Cypress Medical Center Operating Co. v. Cigna Healthcare argued that the district court failed to follow the law of the case as established by an earlier Fifth Circuit panel, citing a paragraph in the panel’s opinion that described the two-step process for resolving a particular ERISA issue. The Fifth Circuit disagreed: “This general statement of the law, expressed in terms of the facts of the case, is no mandate at all. Nor is it a statement of the whole law regarding review of ERISA benefit decisions. The court’s summary omits mention of [two key cases], in which this court established that a party may skip the legal correctness inquiry and proceed to consider
whether the plan administrator abused its discretion, as outlined in [the prior panel opinion]. The [prior] panel did not deny the authority of [those cases] (nor could it).
Accordingly, the district court properly relied on [those cases] in skipping the legal correctness analysis. In so doing, the court did not violate the law of the case and committed no error.” No. 18-20576 (March 18, 2020).