Daniel Graff v. Brighthouse Life Insurance Company, aka Brighthouse Financial Life Insurance Company

The Constitutions of the United States and Minnesota expressly guaranty certain rights and set up a separation of powers between the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government. Minnesota’s Constitution has a remedies clause which expressly provides “[e]very person is entitled to a certain remedy in the laws for all injuries or wrongs”. The Constitution of the United States also sets up a division of powers between the Federal Government and the states. This diversity case deals with the statutory construction by a Federal Court of a state law – a statute silent on whether it provides a private right of action. The Eighth Circuit, in affirming the district court, resolved the statutory silence by giving absolute deference to an agency of state government under the premise that the powers delegated to the agency to regulate the business entrusted to it were an alternative enforcement mechanism to a private right of action. A ruling which: (i) did not employ state law in ascertaining legislative intent; (ii) did not apply the mainstream of decisions of the Minnesota Supreme Court bearing on due process, and on the right to remedial relief for a wrong; and (iii) abdicated judicial power without constitutional sanction. Therefore, the questions presented are: 1. Whether a Federal Court, in disregard of state law and of rules in decisions made by the highest court in a state, can interpret a statute such that it can