Opinion ID: 1192501
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Congressional Intent Disfavors ERISA Preemption of State Lien Laws.

Text: Furthermore, in enacting the MMPA, Congress clearly sought to address the problems created by employer delinquencies in multiemployer benefit plans, to promote prompt payment of contributions, and to assist plans in recovering the costs incurred in connection with delinquencies. Staff of Sen. Comm. on Labor and Human Resources, 96th Cong., 2d Sess., S. 1076, The Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments of 1980: Summary and Analysis of Consideration (Comm. Print 1980) at 43-44. Congress never intended to prevent the trust funds from using any neutral state statute that did not relate to employee benefit plans. The Committee amendment does not change any other type of remedy permitted under State or Federal Law with respect to delinquent multiemployer plan contributions. H.R.Rep. No. 869, 96th Cong., 2d Sess, reprinted in 1980 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2993, 3038. Moreover, Congress's disfavor of ERISA preemption of state lien laws is apparent in a legislative proposal to clarify ERISA's preemption clause. Introduced on February 23, 1993, H.R. 1036 would amend ERISA section 514(b) to clarify that ERISA does not preempt state and local laws that provide additional remedies or other means for collection of employer contributions to an employee benefit plan. The bill was referred to the House Committee on Education and Labor and was approved by the full committee on June 23, 1993. A recent House of Representatives committee report suggests that Congress never intended at the time it enacted ERISA that the legislation would preempt state laws that provide a general means to employee benefit plans for the collection of amounts lawfully due from employers. The report states: There is no indication that Congress intended ERISA to deny employee benefit plans and participants access to State law remedies and other means for collecting employer contributions, such as lien laws. To the contrary, Congress has expressly declared the effective collection of employer contributions by multiemployer plans to be an important policy concern of ERISA. Thus, the congressional committee announced its intention to endorse the bill to counteract and clarify federal and state judicial decisions, discussed in this article, that reflect what Congress considers to be a disturbing tendency to uphold challenges to State laws establishing important worker protections on the basis of ERISA preemption, in spite of strong legal and policy evidence that Congress never intended these laws to be preempted. Among these are State laws affecting ... mechanics liens and other enforcement tools for multiemployer plans to collect delinquent pension contributions. Apparently, Congress also has found that the courts' application of ERISA preemption inequitably distinguishes between two groups of persons: (1) those employees who are not members of ERISA plans and therefore may resort to the use of mechanic's liens and other state remedies to ensure that their employers fulfill their employee benefit obligations; and (2) those employees who are members of ERISA plans and whose only recourse for collecting delinquent employer contributions is federal law. The committee report concludes that this distinction was never the intent of Congress in enacting the ERISA preemption provision. The congressional committee concluded its report by declaring that excepting state-law remedies or means for collection of contributions to employee benefit plans from ERISA's general rule of preemption not only would serve Congress's intent on the issue of preemption, but, more importantly, would advance the fundamental protective policies underlying ERISA by preserving pertinent state laws without interfering with the federal regulatory framework for employee benefit plans provided by ERISA. Klinger, supra, at 127-28 (footnotes omitted). See Sol v. AIG Hawai`i Ins. Co., 76 Hawai`i 304, 309, 875 P.2d 921, 926 (1994) (quoting In the Interest of John Doe, 76 Hawai`i 85, 92 n. 10, 869 P.2d 1304, 1310 n. 10 (1994) (quoting Franks v. City and County of Honolulu, 74 Haw. 328, 340 n. 6, 843 P.2d 668, 674 n. 6 (1993))) (`[T]his court has used subsequent legislative history or amendments to confirm its interpretation of an earlier statutory provision.') (citation omitted). In light of the legislative history and pending legislation noted above, it is apparent that Congress, having declared that effective collection of employer contributions by multiemployer plans to be an important policy concern of ERISA, see Klinger, supra, at 127, did not intend to deny employee benefit plans access to state enforcement tools to collect delinquent contributions.