Court Opinion

ID: 9755458
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:38:46.685126+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:07.671061
License: Public Domain

Justice ENOCH
filed a concurring opinion.
I do not join the Court’s discussion about federal common law in Part IV of its opinion because the parties neither brief *127nor argue the point. But I agree with the Court’s opinion, as far as it goes, in parts I, II, III, V, and with the Court’s judgment. I write separately because while I agree, as the Court holds today, that ERISA preempts Marleen Barnett’s claim for constructive fraud on the community and a constructive trust, the Court is less than clear about the underpinnings of its decision. For in truth, what confronts us is that ERISA, as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court in Egelhoff v. Egelhoff,1 deprives Marleen of her community property interest in the life insurance proceeds. It is not the cause of action she has alleged, it is the right she seeks to enforce.
The Court’s opinion plays into the strength of the dissent, for on the surface, Marleen’s constructive fraud claim has nothing to do with ERISA or with an ERISA-governed employee benefit plan. She attacks neither the plan, the plan’s administrator nor the plan’s designated beneficiary — Christopher Barnett’s estate. Rather, her quarrel is with Christopher designating Dora Barnett as the estate’s beneficiary. Marleen sued the estate, the beneficiary of the estate, and third parties to whom Dora conveyed the policy proceeds. As written, the Court’s opinion begs one to ask just how far down the line, as the money passes through more and more hands, does ERISA appropriately have an interest.
But all of this is really beside the point. Egelhoff is not about causes of action. Egelhoff is about property interests. Unfortunately for Marleen, it is the property right she seeks to enforce that matters.
Because Marleen’s claim is predicated on an enforceable community property right in the life insurance proceeds, she could have as well made a claim against the plan administrator, who ordinarily could be forced, before the proceeds were distributed, to pay Marleen her share. It would not matter who the designated beneficiary was. And it is this type of interest ERISA won’t permit, as the Supreme Court made clear in Egelhoff.2 The Washington State statute at issue in Egelhoff was preempted because it “binds ERISA plan administrators to a particular choice of rules for determining beneficiary status. The administrator must pay benefits to the beneficiaries chosen by state law, rather than to those identified in the plan documents.” 3 To permit Marleen’s claim to continue would be to recognize her community property rights, which would have the same effect, and “thus implicates an area of core ERISA concern.”4 It is therefore the community property right that interferes with ERISA and is preempted. Marleen cannot bring any claim, for constructive trust or otherwise, to enforce that right.
Although the Court’s reluctance to be so pointed is understandable, it should not cloak in its opinion the unavoidable reach of the Supreme Court’s ERISA jurisprudence. I concur in the Court’s opinion, parts I, II, III, V, and its judgment in this case; I write separately to expose the startling breadth of ERISA preemption as the Supreme Court interprets the statute, and its effect on community property rights.

. 532 U.S. 141, 121 S.Ct. 1322, 149 L.Ed.2d 264 (2001).

. Id.

. Id. at 147, 121 S.Ct. 1322.

. Id.