The Breadth of ERISA Preemption
In Edward Marram as Trustee of the Geo-Centers, Inc. Profit Sharing Plan & Trust v. Kobrick Offshore Fund, Ltd. et al., 2009 Mass. Super. LEXIS 85, a state trial judge wrote extensively on ERISA preemption – something that is extremely rare.The judge stated that the Court finds that these claims for contribution are barred under the ERISA preemption provision, 29 U.S.C. §1144(a), which supersedes “any and all State laws insofar as they may now or hereafter relate to any employee benefit plan . . .” 29 U.S.C. §1144(a). “State law” under ERISA is not limited to state statutes; it includes judicial decisions declaring the common law of the state. 29 U.S.C. §1144(c) (”State law” includes “all laws, decisions, rules, regulations or other State action having the effect of law, of any State”). . . . To determine whether State law, namely, the common law of misrepresentation, “relates to” an employee benefit plan and is thus preempted, we must look to Congress’s intent. “The purpose of Congress is the ultimate touchstone.” Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. McClendon, 498 U.S. 133, 138 (1990), quoting Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Lueck, 471 U.S. 202, 208, (1985). There can be no doubt that Congress intended that ERISA’s preemption provision be broadly construed. See Ingersoll-Rand Co., supra, 498 U.S. at 138; Pilot Life Ins. Co. v. Dedeaux, 481 U.S. 41, 46-47 (1987). The provision’s “deliberately expansive” language was “designed to ‘establish pension plan regulation as exclusively a federal concern.’ ” Pilot Life Ins. Co., supra at 46, quoting Alessi v. Raybestos-Manhattan, Inc., 451 U.S. 504, 523 (1981). See Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 463 U.S. 85, 98-100 (1983). “A law ‘relates to’ an employee benefit plan, in the normal sense of the phrase, if it has a connection with or reference to such a plan.” Id. at 96-97. “Under this ‘broad common-sense meaning,’ a state law may ‘relate to’ a benefit plan, and thereby be preempted, even if the law is not specifically designed to affect such plans, or the effect is only indirect.” Ingersoll-Rand Co., supra, 498 U.S. at 139, quoting Pilot Life Ins. Co., supra, 481 U.S. at 47.
“Some state actions may affect employee benefit plans in too tenuous, remote, or peripheral a manner to warrant a finding that the law ‘relates to’ the plan.” Shaw, supra, 463 U.S. at 100 n. 21. . . .Here, the alleged claim under the common law of negligence would directly relate to an ERISA plan because it would require a state court to determine the duty owed by these fiduciaries to an ERISA plan with respect to their investment of Plan monies. See Zipperer v. Raytheon Co., Inc., 493 F.3d 50, 53-54 (1st Cir. 2007) (finding that a negligence claim was preempted because it was based on the defendant’s record-keeping responsibilities under an ERISA plan); Donavan v. Robbins, 752 F.2d 1170, 1180 (7th Cir. 1985) (declaring it “extremely unlikely that Congress would have wanted ERISA fiduciaries to be subject to the vagaries of state contribution law”). Even if the Massachusetts common law of negligence were to mirror precisely the fiduciary duty owed under federal ERISA law governing the investment of ERISA funds, the mere possibility that it would differ and be in conflict with ERISA’s objectives is sufficient to require this state court to forbear from touching the contribution claim.
