Opinion ID: 198969
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Reference.

Text: 19 Discerning no impermissible connection, we turn to the second branch of the ERISA preemption analysis and ask whether the Massachusetts bond statute refers to covered employee benefit plans so directly as to justify preemption. Prior to the Supreme Court's decision in Travelers, this court answered that query affirmatively, holding that the bond statute singled out ERISA plans and was therefore preempted. See Williams, 45 F.3d at 591. In USF&G's view, that ought to be the end of the matter. Because special circumstances obtain here, we disagree. 20 We do not gainsay that the principle of stare decisis forms an integral part of our system of justice. Withal, that system is not only precedent-based but also hierarchical. When emergent Supreme Court case law calls into question a prior opinion of another court, that court should pause to consider its likely significance before giving effect to an earlier decision. See, e.g., Odum v. Boone, 62 F.3d 327, 332 n.2 (10th Cir. 1995); Pritzker v. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., 7 F.3d 1110, 1115 (3d Cir. 1993). Indeed, Williams itself acknowledged that there would be occasions, albeit relatively rare, on which a newly constituted panel should eschew prior circuit precedent in deference to intervening authority. 45 F.3d at 592. Our task, then, is to determine whether Williams, though not directly overruled or superseded, fairly can be said to have fallen by the wayside. We conclude that it has. 21 Let us be perfectly clear. We value finality, stability, and certainty in the law, particularly in the field of statutory construction. See Hubbard v. United States, 514 U.S. 695, 711 (1995). But stare decisis is neither a straightjacket nor an immutable rule; it leaves room for courts to balance their respect for precedent against insights gleaned from new developments, and to make informed judgments as to whether earlier decisions retain preclusive force. See United States v. Connor, 926 F.2d 81, 83 (1st Cir. 1991). We explain below why we believe that this case represents one of those uncommon instances in which intervening developments in the law make reconsideration appropriate. 22 The place to begin such an odyssey normally would be with Williams itself. Here, however, we retreat further into the past, cognizant that Williams relied heavily on an earlier precedent, McCoy v. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 950 F.2d 13 (1st Cir. 1991). Given that symbiosis, gaining perspective on Williams necessitates an appreciation of McCoy. 23 In McCoy, we ruled that ERISA preempted the operation of a Massachusetts mechanics' lien statute, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 254, because the language of the statute expressly single[d] out ERISA plans for special treatment. McCoy, 950 F.2d at 19. We noted that the mechanics' lien statute, by its terms, inured to the advantage of the trustee or trustees of any fund or funds, established pursuant to section 302 of the Taft Hartley Law (29 U.S.C. 186), providing coverage or benefits to [an employee]. Id. (quoting statute). On that basis, we concluded that: 24 [A]ny plan that grants benefits under 29 U.S.C. § 186, which is another way of describing any plan that grants benefits under section 302 of the Taft- Hartley Act, is by definition an ERISA plan. Put bluntly, by singling out section 302 plans for special treatment, the Massachusetts mechanics' lien law, in the same stroke, singles out ERISA plans for special treatment. It is, therefore, preempted as it applies to ERISA-regulated plans. 25 Id. at 19-20. We attributed this conclusion in large part to what we termed considered dictum, id. at 19, appearing in Mackey v. Lanier Collection Agency, 486 U.S. 825, 838 n.12 (1988) (declaring that any state law which singles out ERISA plans, by express reference, for special treatment is pre-empted). 5 26 McCoy set the stage for Williams. There, we harkened back to McCoy and depicted the mechanics' lien statute and the bond statute as sisters under the skin. Williams, 45 F.3d at 592. Because we perceive[d] no rational basis on which to distinguish between [them] for the purpose of gauging ERISA's preemptive reach, we concluded that ERISA preempted the latter statute. Id. at 591. It is this holding that we re-examine today. 27 The key precedents are the Supreme Court's subsequent opinions in Travelers and Dillingham. The extent to which the analytical shift chronicled in these opinions applies to the reference to aspect of the ERISA preemption inquiry is less than obvious. The Travelers Court quickly ruled out any possibility that the state law it was called upon to consider made reference to an ERISA plan and refined the ERISA preemption analysis in the context of the connection with inquiry. See Travelers, 514 U.S. at 656. The Dillingham Court recounted the reasoning of Travelers without explicitly limiting that reasoning to the connection with inquiry, but its actual treatment of the reference to question relied entirely on pre-Travelers precedent and made only passing mention of ERISA's objectives. See Dillingham, 519 U.S. at 325-28. Thus, both opinions stop short of explicitly endorsing a new analytic modality for the reference to inquiry. See Prudential Ins. Co. v. National Park Med. Ctr., 154 F.3d 812, 820-22 (8th Cir. 1998). 28 USF&G contends that, absent an outright endorsement, we should disregard the reasoning of Travelers and Dillingham in pursuing the reference to question. We think not. Although the Travelers Court had no occasion to link its newly conceived objectives analysis to the reference to inquiry, the two building blocks on which that analysis rests - the starting presumption that Congress did not intend to supplant state law and the requirement that no preemption be deemed to occur in areas of traditional state regulation except in accord with the clear and manifest purpose of Congress - logically undergird both inquiries. See Travelers, 514 U.S. at 654-56 (dealing with baseline presumptions before beginning its bifurcated connection with and reference to analyses). We thus proceed to apply the teachings of Travelers and Dillingham as we understand them. 29 To begin with, Dillingham makes clear that two types of state laws - those that impose requirements by reference to ERISA plans and those that specifically exempt ERISA plans from otherwise generally applicable provisions - as well as state causes of action that are predicated on the existence of ERISA plans all refer to, and thus relate to, ERISA plans for purposes of 29 U.S.C. § 1144(a). See Dillingham, 519 U.S. at 324-25. Put another way, in the post-Travelers era the reference to inquiry will result in preemption [w]here a State's law acts immediately and exclusively upon ERISA plans... or where the existence of ERISA plans is essential to the law's operation. Id. at 325 (citations omitted). 30 Examining Williams through the prism of Travelers and Dillingham, a rational distinction between the mechanics' lien statute and the bond statute, not previously thought to be important, bubbles to the surface: unlike the mechanics' lien statute, the bond statute makes no direct reference to section 302. Instead, it states that bonds for public works projects shall cover, in addition to labor and materials, 31 any sums due trustees or other persons authorized to collect such payments from the contractor or subcontractors, based upon the labor performed or furnished as aforesaid, for health and welfare plans, supplementary unemployment benefit plans and other fringe benefits which are payable in cash and provided for in collective bargaining agreements between organized labor and the contractor or subcontractors.... 32 Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 149, § 29. The language concerning trustees is not ERISA-specific, but stands at the end of a long list of items that contractors are required to secure (e.g., amounts due for labor performed, materials furnished, transportation, equipment rental, and the like). The diversity of this list is telling (especially since most of these items have nothing whatever to do with ERISA). Furthermore, the bond statute treats contributions to fringe benefit plans in exactly the same manner as it treats the other (non-ERISA-related) elements that fall within the statutory sweep. Given the Dillingham screen, this combination of factors stretches any inference that the bond statute singles out ERISA plans for special treatment past the breaking point. 6 See Seaboard Sur., 137 F.3d at 429. 33 Dillingham confirms in another way that a reviewing court should differentiate between the mechanics' lien statute and the bond statute for purposes of the reference to inquiry. The Supreme Court's approach there reflects a conservative view of the inquiry, suggesting that a reference must be patent before ERISA preemption looms. See Dillingham, 519 U.S. at 324-25. The precedents that Dillingham cites, see id., illustrate this point. 7 In each of those cases, an ERISA plan lay at the center of the inquiry. In contrast, the bond statute functions irrespective of the existence or non-existence of an ERISA plan. 34 The sockdolager is that emergent Supreme Court precedent, by disavowing a strictly textual approach to the interpretation of ERISA's preemption provision, encourages us for the first time to conduct the reference to inquiry in light of the actual operation of the challenged state statute. See De Buono, 520 U.S. at 815; Dillingham, 519 U.S. at 324-25. Here, that glimpse is revealing. The bond statute neither imposes requirements on ERISA plans nor exempts such plans from otherwise applicable statutory provisions. In operation, therefore, the statute comports fully with ERISA's objectives. Furthermore, it does not dictate the form that a covered plan may take, specify the mode or manner of plan administration, or jeopardize the sort of uniformity that Congress aspired to achieve. Given these facts, the statutory reference to the term trustees seems too tenuous to trigger ERISA preemption. See Howell, 126 F.3d at 68. Indeed, the case at hand is, in this respect, reminiscent of Dillingham, in which the Supreme Court held that a statutory mention of an apprenticeship program was not sufficient to cause preemption under the reference to prong. See 519 U.S. at 325. 35 USF&G's argument that the bond statute singles out ERISA plans because it is limited to public (as opposed to private) construction contracts lacks force. It is common ground that state laws of general application are safe from ERISA preemption even if they impose some incidental burdens on the administration of covered plans. See Washington Physicians Serv. Ass'n v. Gregoire, 147 F.3d 1039, 1043 (9th Cir. 1998), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 1141 (1999); Howell, 126 F.3d at 67; cf. Travelers, 514 U.S. at 659-60 (explaining that the fact that a law has an indirect economic influence on ERISA plans does not, in and of itself, justify preemption). USF&G's argument amounts to a claim that the bond statute is something other than a law of general application. 36 In our view, the concept of general application cannot be parsed that closely. A state law that applies to a wide variety of situations, including an appreciable number that have no specific linkage to ERISA plans, constitutes a law of general application for purposes of 29 U.S.C. § 1144(a). See, e.g., Mackey, 486 U.S. at 838 n.12; Shea v. Esensten, 208 F.3d 712, 717 (8th Cir. 2000); Arizona State Carpenters Pension Trust Fund v. Citibank (Ariz.), 125 F.3d 715, 724 (9th Cir. 1997). Under this definition, the bond statute ranks as a law of general application for ERISA preemption purposes because it applies to a sufficiently broad, sufficiently generalized universe of situations - all Massachusetts public works projects - without mentioning ERISA and without regard to whether any affected person is (or is not) involved with a covered plan. See De Buono, 520 U.S. at 815; Howell, 126 F.3d at 67-68. 37 To sum up, the bond statute, gauged by the principles embodied in recent Supreme Court case law, neither singles out ERISA plans for special treatment nor depends on their existence as an essential part of its operation. Rather, the statute is indifferent to... ERISA coverage. Dillingham, 519 U.S. at 328. It is properly classified, therefore, as one of 'myriad state laws' of general applicability that impose some burdens on the administration of ERISA plans but nevertheless do not 'relate to' them within the meaning of the governing statute. De Buono, 520 U.S. at 815. Thus, it does not trigger preemption. See Travelers, 514 U.S. at 656; JWJ Contracting, 135 F.3d at 679; Howell, 126 F.3d at 68.