Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/18-540_m64o.pdf
Page Number: 7

4 

RUTLEDGE v. PHARMACEUTICAL CARE 
MANAGEMENT ASSN. 
Opinion of the Court 

ERISA  likewise  pre-empts  Act  900.   240  F.  Supp.  3d  951, 
958 (ED Ark. 2017).  The Eighth Circuit affirmed.  891 F. 
3d 1109, 1113 (2018).  This Court granted certiorari.  589 
U. S. ___ (2020). 

II 
  ERISA pre-empts “any and all State laws insofar as they 
may now or hereafter relate to any employee benefit plan” 
covered by ERISA.  29 U. S. C. §1144(a).  “[A] state law re-
lates to an ERISA plan if it has a connection with or refer-
ence  to  such  a  plan.”    Egelhoff  v.  Egelhoff,  532  U. S.  141, 
147 (2001) (internal quotation marks omitted).  Because Act 
900 has neither of those impermissible relationships with 
an ERISA plan, ERISA does not pre-empt it. 

A 
  To determine whether a state law has an “impermissible 
connection”  with  an  ERISA  plan,  this  Court  considers 
ERISA’s objectives “as a guide to the scope of the state law 
that Congress understood would survive.”  California Div. 
of  Labor  Standards  Enforcement  v.  Dillingham  Constr., 
N.  A.,  Inc.,  519  U. S.  316,  325  (1997)  (internal  quotation 
marks omitted).  ERISA was enacted “to make the benefits 
promised by an employer more secure by mandating certain 
oversight  systems  and  other  standard  procedures.”    Go-
beille  v.  Liberty  Mut.  Ins.  Co.,  577  U. S.  312,  320–321 
(2016).  In pursuit of that goal, Congress sought “to ensure 
that plans and plan sponsors would be subject to a uniform 
body  of  benefits  law,”  thereby  “minimiz[ing]  the  adminis-
trative and financial burden of complying with conflicting 
directives”  and  ensuring  that  plans  do  not  have  to  tailor 
substantive benefits to the particularities of multiple juris-
dictions.  Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. McClendon, 498 U. S. 133, 
142 (1990). 
  ERISA  is  therefore  primarily  concerned  with  pre- 
empting  laws  that  require  providers  to  structure  benefit