Opinion ID: 111858
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: In ERISA, Congress set out to

Text: protect . . . participants in employee benefit plans and their beneficiaries, by requiring the disclosure and reporting to participants and beneficiaries of financial and other information with respect thereto, by establishing standards of conduct, responsibility, and obligation for fiduciaries of employee benefit plans, and by providing for appropriate remedies, sanctions, and ready access to the Federal courts. § 2, as set forth in 29 U. S. C. § 1001(b). ERISA comprehensively regulates, among other things, employee welfare benefit plans that, through the purchase of insurance or otherwise, provide medical, surgical, or hospital care, or benefits in the event of sickness, accident, disability, or death. § 3(1), 29 U. S. C. § 1002(1). Congress capped off the massive undertaking of ERISA with three provisions relating to the pre-emptive effect of the federal legislation: Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section [the saving clause], the provisions of this subchapter and subchapter III of this chapter shall supersede any and all State laws insofar as they may now or hereafter relate to any employee benefit plan . . . . § 514(a), as set forth in 29 U. S. C. § 1144(a) (pre-emption clause). Except as provided in subparagraph (B) [the deemer clause], nothing in this subchapter shall be construed to exempt or relieve any person from any law of any State which regulates insurance, banking, or securities. § 514(b)(2)(A), as set forth in 29 U. S. C. § 1144(b)(2)(A) (saving clause). Neither an employee benefit plan . . . nor any trust established under such a plan, shall be deemed to be an insurance company or other insurer, bank, trust company, or investment company or to be engaged in the business of insurance or banking for purposes of any law of any State purporting to regulate insurance companies, insurance contracts, banks, trust companies, or investment companies. § 514(b)(2)(B), 29 U. S. C. § 1144(b) (2)(B) (deemer clause). To summarize the pure mechanics of the provisions quoted above: If a state law relate[s] to . . . employee benefit plan[s], it is pre-empted. § 514(a). The saving clause excepts from the pre-emption clause laws that regulat[e] insurance. § 514(b)(2)(A). The deemer clause makes clear that a state law that purport[s] to regulate insurance cannot deem an employee benefit plan to be an insurance company. § 514(b)(2)(B). [T]he question whether a certain state action is preempted by federal law is one of congressional intent. ` The purpose of Congress is the ultimate touchstone. '  Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Lueck, 471 U. S. 202, 208 (1985), quoting Malone v. White Motor Corp., 435 U. S. 497, 504 (1978), quoting Retail Clerks v. Schermerhorn, 375 U. S. 96, 103 (1963). We have observed in the past that the express pre-emption provisions of ERISA are deliberately expansive, and designed to establish pension plan regulation as exclusively a federal concern. Alessi v. Raybestos-Manhattan, Inc., 451 U. S. 504, 523 (1981). As we explained in Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 463 U. S. 85, 98 (1983): The bill that became ERISA originally contained a limited pre-emption clause, applicable only to state laws relating to the specific subjects covered by ERISA. The Conference Committee rejected those provisions in favor of the present language, and indicated that section's pre-emptive scope was as broad as its language. See H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 93-1280, p. 383 (1974); S. Conf. Rep. No. 93-1090, p. 383 (1974). The House and Senate sponsors emphasized both the breadth and importance of the pre-emption provisions. Representative Dent described the reservation to Federal authority [of] the sole power to regulate the field of employee benefit plans as ERISA's crowning achievement. 120 Cong. Rec. 29197 (1974). Senator Williams said: It should be stressed that with the narrow exceptions specified in the bill, the substantive and enforcement provisions of the conference substitute are intended to preempt the field for Federal regulations, thus eliminating the threat of conflicting or inconsistent State and local regulation of employee benefit plans. This principle is intended to apply in its broadest sense to all actions of State or local governments, or any instrumentality thereof, which have the force or effect of law. Id., at 29933. See also Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., supra, at 99-100, n. 20 (describing remarks of Sen. Javits). In Metropolitan Life, this Court, noting that the preemption and saving clauses perhaps are not a model of legislative drafting, 471 U. S., at 739, interpreted these clauses in relation to a Massachusetts statute that required minimum mental health care benefits to be provided Massachusetts residents covered by general health insurance policies. The appellants in Metropolitan Life argued that the state statute, as applied to insurance policies purchased by employee health care plans regulated by ERISA, was pre-empted. The Court concluded, first, that the Massachusetts statute did relate to . . . employee benefit plan[s], thus placing the state statute within the broad sweep of the pre-emption clause, § 514(a). Metropolitan Life, supra, at 739. However, the Court held that, because the state statute was one that regulate[d] insurance, the saving clause prevented the state law from being pre-empted. In determining whether the Massachusetts statute regulated insurance, the Court was guided by case law interpreting the phrase business of insurance in the McCarran-Ferguson Act, 59 Stat. 33, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 1011 et seq. Given the statutory complexity of ERISA's three pre-emption provisions, Metropolitan Life, supra, at 740, as well as the wide variety of state statutory and decisional law arguably affected by the federal pre-emption provisions, it is not surprising that we are again called on to interpret these provisions.