United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 22-1121 SCOTT SCANLON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF NORTH AMERICA, Defendant-Appellee. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 1:20-cv-00744 — Charles R. Norgle, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED NOVEMBER 9, 2022 — AUGUST 31, 2023 ____________________

Before ROVNER, JACKSON-AKIWUMI, and LEE, Circuit Judges. JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judge. Scott Scanlon is a U.S. Army veteran with a history of chronic pain and sleep disor- ders. He sought long term disability benefits pursuant to his employer’s group policy with the Life Insurance Company of North America (“LINA”). When LINA denied his claim, Scanlon sought de novo review in the district court under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, 29 U.S.C. 2 No. 22-1121 § 1132. The district court found Scanlon not entitled to bene- fits, so Scanlon filed this appeal. We conclude that the district court clearly erred when it failed to consider Scanlon’s inabil- ity to sit at his desk for eight hours a day as required by his occupation and his inability to perform the cognitive require- ments of his job during regular work hours. The district court also erred in its treatment of certain medical records Scanlon provided. We therefore vacate and remand. I In October 2017, Scanlon went on temporary leave from his job as a Windows Systems Administrator at the McKesson Corporation. He requested certain accommodations to return to work; McKesson temporarily granted some, but not all, of them. Scanlon did not return to work. Instead, Scanlon sought long term disability insurance benefits pursuant to a McKesson group policy underwritten, insured, and adminis- tered by LINA. To meet the definition of “disabled” under the policy, an employee must be unable to: (1) perform the “material duties” of the employee’s regular occupation and (2) earn 80% or more of the employee’s indexed earnings from working in the employee’s regular occupation. The policy defines “regular occupation” as “[t]he occupation the Employee routinely per- forms at the time the Disability begins.” In evaluating a disa- bility claim, LINA “consider[s] the duties of the occupation as it is normally performed in the general labor market in the national economy,” as opposed to the roles and responsibili- ties of an employee working for a specific employer. LINA initially denied Scanlon’s request for disability ben- efits because he did not provide sufficient evidence. It then No. 22-1121 3 denied two administrative appeals after Scanlon supplied the requested documentation. In the process, LINA asked two medical examiners, Drs. Joseph Sentef and Krishna Padiyar, to review Scanlon’s claims of disability. Both doctors con- cluded that Scanlon was not entitled to long term disability benefits. Scanlon filed a complaint in the district court seeking de novo review of LINA’s denial of benefits. Scanlon supplied the court with the evidence presented to LINA during admin- istrative adjudication, and with supplemental records. The district court found that Scanlon suffered from myriad chronic orthopedic and sleep disorders that cause him pain and impact his daily life. Nevertheless, the court found Scanlon ineligible for long term disability benefits under LINA’s policy because Scanlon did not show, by a preponder- ance of the evidence, that he cannot perform the material du- ties of his job. The district court described in detail the medical evide