OCTOBER TERM, 1992
Syllabus
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ET AL.
v. GREATER WASHINGTON BOARD
OF TRADE
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
No. 91-1326. Argued November 3, 1992-Decided December
14,1992
Section 2(c)(2) of the District of Columbia Workers'
Compensation Equity Amendment Act of 1990 requires employers who
provide health insurance for their employees to provide equivalent
health insurance coverage for injured employees eligible for
workers' compensation benefits. Respondent, an employer affected by
this requirement, filed an action in the District Court against
petitioners, the District of Columbia and its Mayor, seeking to
enjoin enforcement of § 2(c)(2) on the ground that it is pre-empted
by § 514(a) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974
(ERISA), which provides that ERISA supersedes state laws that
"relate to any employee benefit plan" covered by ERISA. Although
petitioners conceded that § 2(c)(2) relates to an ERISA-covered
plan, the court granted their motion to dismiss. Relying on this
Court's decision in
Shaw v.
Delta Air Lines, Inc.,
463 U. S. 85, it
held that § 2(c)(2) is not pre-empted because it also relates to
respondent's workers' compensation plan, which is exempt from ERISA
coverage, and because respondent could comply with the provision by
creating a separate unit to administer the required benefits. The
Court of Appeals reversed, holding that pre-emption of § 2(c)(2) is
compelled by § 514(a)'s plain meaning and ERISA's structure.
Held: Section 2(c)(2) is pre-empted by ERISA. A state law
"relate[s] to" a covered benefit plan for § 514(a) purposes if it
refers to or has a connection with such a plan, even if the law is
not designed to affect the plan or the effect is only indirect.
See,
e. g., Ingersoll-Rand Co. v.
McClendon, 498 U. S. 133, 139.
Section 2(c)(2) measures the required health care coverage by
reference to "the existing health insurance coverage," which is a
welfare benefit plan subject to ERISA regulation. It does not
matter that § 2(c)(2)'s requirements also "relate to" ERISA-exempt
workers' compensation plans, since ERISA's exemptions do not limit
§ 514's pre-emptive sweep once it is determined that a law relates
to a covered plan. See
Alessi v.
Raybestos-Manhattan,
Inc., 451 U. S.
504, 525. Petitioners' reliance on
Shaw, supra, is
misplaced, since the statute at issue there did not "relate to" an
ERISA-covered plan. Nor is there any support in
Metropolitan
Life Ins. Co. v.
Massachusetts, 471 U. S. 724, for their
position that § 514(a) requires a two-part analysis
126
under which a state law relating to an ERISA-covered plan would
survive pre-emption if employers could comply with the law through
separately administered exempt plans. Pp. 129-133.
292 U. S. App. D. C. 209,
948 F.2d
1317, affirmed.
THOMAS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
REHNQUIST, C. J., and WHITE, BLACKMUN, O'CONNOR, SCALIA, KENNEDY,
and SOUTER, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion,
post, p. 133.
Donna M. Murasky, Assistant Corporation Counsel of the
District of Columbia, argued the cause for petitioners. With her on
the briefs were
John Payton, Corporation Counsel, and
Charles Reischel, Deputy Corporation Counsel.
Lawrence P. Postol argued the cause for respondent.
With him on the brief was
John N.
Erlenborn. *
JUSTICE THOMAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
The District of Columbia requires employers who provide health
insurance for their employees to provide equivalent health
insurance coverage for injured employees eligible for
*Briefs of
amici curiae urging reversal were filed for
the State of Connecticut et al. by
Richard Blumenthal,
Attorney General of Connecticut, and
Arnold B. Feigin,
Assistant Attorney General, and
Scott Harshbarger, Attorney
General of Massachusetts; for the State of Oklahoma
ex rel.
Dave Renfro, Commissioner of Labor, et al. by
Susan B.
Loving, Attorney General,
Rabindranath Ramana, Assistant
Attorney General,
Michael M. Sykes, and
Kayla A.
Bower; for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of
Industrial Organizations by
Marsha S.
Berzon and
Laurence Gold; and for the American Optometric Association
by
Bennett Boskey, Ellis Lyons, and
Edward A.
Groobert.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the
United States by Solicitor General Starr, Deputy Solicitor General
Mahoney, Christopher J. Wright, Allen H. Feldman, Nathaniel I.
Spiller, and Deborah Greenfield; for the Chamber of Commerce of the
United States by Mona C. Zeiberg and Hollis T. Hurd; for the
Connecticut Business and Industry Association by Daniel L.
FitzMaurice; and for the District of Columbia Insurance Federation
by William A. Dobrovir and Lawrence H. Mirel.
Steven S.
Zaleznick and
Cathy
Ventrell-Monsees filed a brief for the American Association of
Retired Persons as
amicus curiae.
127
workers' compensation benefits. We hold that this requirement is
pre-empted by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974
(ERISA), 88 Stat. 829, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 1001
et
seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. II).
I
ERISA sets out a comprehensive system for the federal regulation
of private employee benefit plans, including both pension plans and
welfare plans. A "welfare plan" is defined in § 3 of ERISA to
include,
inter alia, any "plan, fund, or program" maintained
for the purpose of providing medical or other health benefits for
employees or their beneficiaries "through the purchase of insurance
or otherwise." § 3(1), 29 U. S. C. § 1002(1). Section 4 defines the
broad scope of ERISA coverage. Subject to certain exemptions, ERISA
applies generally to all employee benefit plans sponsored by an
employer or employee organization. § 4(a), 29 U. S. C. § 1003(a).
Among the plans exempt from ERISA coverage under § 4(b) are those
"maintained solely for the purpose of complying with applicable
workmen's compensation laws or unemployment compensation or
disability insurance laws." § 4(b)(3), 29 U. S. C. §
1003(b)(3).
ERISA's pre-emption provision assures that federal regulation of
covered plans will be exclusive. Section 514(a) provides that ERISA
"shall supersede any and all State laws insofar as they may now or
hereafter relate to any employee benefit plan" covered by ERISA. §
514(a), 29 U. S. C. § 1144(a). Several categories of state laws,
such as generally applicable criminal laws and laws regulating
insurance, banking, or securities, are excepted from ERISA
preemption by § 514(b), 29 U. S. C. § 1144(b), but none of these
exceptions is at issue here.
Effective March 6, 1991, the District of Columbia Workers'
Compensation Equity Amendment Act of 1990, 37 D. C. Register 6890
(Nov. 1990), amended several portions of the District's workers'
compensation law, D. C. Code Ann. §§ 36-301
128
to 36-345 (1981 and Supp. 1992). Section 2(c)(2) of the Equity
Amendment Act added the following requirement:
"Any employer who provides health insurance coverage for an
employee shall provide health insurance coverage equivalent to the
existing health insurance coverage of the employee while the
employee receives or is eligible to receive workers' compensation
benefits under this chapter." D. C. Code Ann. §36-307(a-1)(1)
(Supp. 1992).
Under § 2(c)(2), the employer must provide such health insurance
coverage for up to 52 weeks "at the same benefit level that the
employee had at the time the employee received or was eligible to
receive workers' compensation benefits." § 36-307(a-1)(3).
Respondent Greater Washington Board of Trade, a nonprofit
corporation that sponsors health insurance coverage for its
employees, filed this action against the District of Columbia and
Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly seeking to enjoin enforcement of § 2(c)(2)
on the ground that the "equivalent" benefits requirement is
pre-empted by § 514(a) of ERISA. The District Court granted
petitioners' motion to dismiss. App. to Pet. for Cert. 21a.
Petitioners conceded that § 2(c)(2) "relate[s] to" an ERISA-covered
plan in the sense that the benefits required under the challenged
law "are set by reference to covered employee benefit plans."
Id., at 22a. Relying on our opinion in
Shaw v.
Delta Air Lines, Inc., 463 U. S. 85 (1983), however, the
District Court held that § 2(c)(2) is not pre-empted because it
also relates to respondent's workers' compensation plan, which is
exempt from ERISA coverage, and because respondent could comply
with § 2(c)(2) "by creating a 'separate administrative unit' to
administer the required benefits." App. to Pet. for Cert. 24a
(quoting
Shaw, supra, at 108).
The Court of Appeals reversed. 292 U. S. App. D. C. 209,
948 F.2d
1317 (1991). The court held that pre-emption of
129
§ 2(c)(2) is compelled by the plain meaning of § 514(a) and by
the structure of ERISA.
Id., at 215-216, 948 F. 2d, at
1323-1324. In the court's view, ERISA pre-empts a law that relates
to a covered plan and is not excepted from preemption by § 514(b),
regardless of whether the law also relates to an exempt plan.
Ibid. The Court of Appeals further concluded that this
result would advance the policies and purposes served by ERISA
pre-emption.
Id., at 217218, 948 F. 2d, at 1325-1326. By
tying the benefit levels of the workers' compensation plan to those
provided in an ERISA-covered plan, "the Equity Amendment Act could
have a serious impact on the administration and content of the
ERISA-covered plan."
Id., at 217, 948 F. 2d, at 1325.
Because the opinion below conflicts with the Second Circuit's
decision in
R. R. Donnelley &
Sons Co. v.
Prevost, 915 F.2d
787 (1990), cert. denied, 499 U. S. 947 (1991), which upheld
against a pre-emption challenge a Connecticut law substantially
similar to § 2(c)(2), we granted certiorari. 503 U. S. 970 (1992).
We now affirm.
II
We have repeatedly stated that a law "relate[s] to" a covered
employee benefit plan for purposes of § 514(a) "if it has a
connection with or reference to such a plan."
Shaw, supra,
at 97.
E. g., Ingersoll-Rand Co. v.
McClendon, 498 U.
S. 133, 139 (1990);
FMC Corp. v.
Holliday, 498 U. S. 52, 58
(1990); Mackey v.
Lanier Collection Agency &
Service, Inc., 486 U. S. 825, 829
(1988);
Pilot Life Ins. Co. v.
Dedeaux, 481 U. S. 41,
47 (1987);
Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v.
Massachusetts, 471 U. S. 724, 739
(1985). This reading is true to the ordinary meaning of "relate
to," see Black's Law Dictionary 1288 (6th ed. 1990), and thus gives
effect to the "deliberately expansive" language chosen by Congress.
Pilot Life, supra, at 46. See also
Morales v.
Trans World Airlines, Inc., 504 U. S. 374, 383
(1992). Under § 514(a), ERISA preempts any state law that refers to
or has a connection with
130
covered benefit plans (and that does not fall within a § 514(b)
exception) "even if the law is not specifically designed to affect
such plans, or the effect is only indirect,"
IngersollRand,
supra, at 139, and even if the law is "consistent with ERISA's
substantive requirements,"
Metropolitan Life, supra, at
739.1
Section 2(c)(2) of the District's Equity Amendment Act
specifically refers to welfare benefit plans regulated by ERISA and
on that basis alone is pre-empted. The health insurance coverage
that § 2(c)(2) requires employers to provide for eligible employees
is measured by reference to "the existing health insurance
coverage" provided by the employer and "shall be at the same
benefit level." D. C. Code Ann. §§ 36-307(a-1)(1) and (3) (Supp.
1992). The employee's "existing health insurance coverage," in
turn, is a welfare benefit plan under ERISA § 3(1), because it
involves a fund or program maintained by an employer for the
purpose of providing health benefits for the employee "through the
purchase of insurance or otherwise." § 3(1), 29 U. S. C. §
1002(1).2 Such employer-sponsored health insurance programs are
subject to ERISA regulation, see §4(a), 29 U. S. C. § 1003(a), and
any state law imposing requirements by refer-
1 Pre-emption does not occur, however, if the state law has only
a "tenuous, remote, or peripheral" connection with covered plans,
Shaw v.
Delta Air Lines, Inc., 463 U. S. 85, 100, n. 21
(1983), as is the case with many laws of general applicability, see
Mackey, 486 U. S., at 830-838, and n. 12; cf.
Ingersoll-Rand, 498 U. S., at 139.
2Jn
Fort Halifax Packing Co. v.
Coyne, 482 U. S. 1 (1987), we
construed the word "plan" to connote some minimal, ongoing
"administrative" scheme or practice, and held that "a one-time,
lump-sum payment triggered by a single event" does not qualify as
an employer-sponsored benefit plan.
Id., at 12. Petitioners
do not contend that employers in the District of Columbia provide
health insurance for their employees without thereby administering
welfare plans within the meaning of ERISA, and petitioners concede
that the existing health insurance sponsored by respondent
constitutes an ERISA plan. Tr. of Oral Arg. 14.
131
ence to such covered programs must yield to ERISA.3 This
conclusion is consistent with
Mackey v.
Lanier Collection
Agency, which struck down a Georgia law that specifically
exempted ERISA plans from a generally applicable garnishment
procedure. 486 U. S., at 828, n. 2, and 829-830. It also follows
from
Ingersoll-Rand, where we held that ERISA § 514(a)
pre-empted a Texas common-law cause of action for wrongful
discharge based on an employer's desire to avoid paying into an
employee's pension fund. Even though the employee sought no pension
benefits, only "lost future wages, mental anguish and punitive
damages," 498 U. S., at 136 (internal quotation marks omitted), we
held the claim pre-empted because it was "premised on" the
existence of an ERISA-covered pension plan.
Id., at 140.
It makes no difference that § 2(c)(2)'s requirements are part of
the District's regulation of, and therefore also "relate to,"
ERISA-exempt workers' compensation plans. The exemptions from ERISA
coverage set out in §4(b), 29 U. S. C. § 1003(b), do not limit the
pre-emptive sweep of § 514 once it is determined that the law in
question relates to a covered plan. See
Alessi v.
Raybestos-Manhattan, Inc., 451 U. S. 504,525 (1981)
("It is of no moment that New Jersey intrudes indirectly, through a
workers' compensation law, rather than directly, through a statute
called 'pension regulation' ").
Shaw v.
Delta Air Lines,
Inc., 463 U. S.
85 (1983), does not support petitioners' position.
Shaw
dealt, in relevant part, with a New York disability law that
required employers to pay weekly benefits to disabled employees
equal to "'onehalf of the employee's average weekly wage.'''
Id., at 90, n. 4 (quoting N. Y. Work. Compo Law § 204.2
(McKinney Supp. 1982-1983)). We held that this law was not pre-
3 ERISA does not pre-empt § 2(c)(2) to the extent its
requirements are measured only by reference to "existing health
insurance coverage" provided under plans that are exempt from ERISA
regulation, such as "governmental" or "church" plans, see ERISA §§
4(b)(I) and (2), 29 U. S. C. §§ 1003(b)(I) and (2).
132
empted by § 514(a) because it related exclusively to exempt
employee benefit plans "maintained solely for the purpose of
complying with applicable ... disability insurance laws" within the
meaning of § 4(b)(3), 29 U. S. C. § 1003(b)(3). See 463 U. S., at
106-108. The fact that employers could comply with the New York law
by administering the required disability benefits through a
multibenefit ERISA plan did not mean that the law related to such
ERISA plans for preemption purposes. See id., at 108. We simply
held that as long as the employer's disability plan, "as an
administrative unit, provide[d] only those benefits required by"
the New York law, it could qualify as an exempt plan under ERISA §
4(b)(3).
Id., at 107. Thus, unlike § 2(c)(2) of the
District's Equity Amendment Act, the New York statute at issue in
Shaw did not "relate to" an ERISA-covered plan.
Petitioners nevertheless point to
Metropolitan Life
Ins.
Co. v.
Massachusetts, 471 U. S. 724 (1985), in
which we described
Shaw as holding that "the New York Human
Rights Law and that State's Disability Benefits Law 'relate[d] to'
welfare plans governed by ERISA."
Id., at 739. Relying on
this dictum and their reading of
Shaw, petitioners argue
that § 514(a) should be construed to require a two-step analysis:
If the state law "relate[s] to" an ERISA-covered plan, it may still
survive pre-emption if employers could comply with the law through
separately administered plans exempt under §4(b). See Tr. of Oral
Arg. 16-17. But
Metropolitan Life construed only the scope
of § 514(b)(2)(A)'s safe harbor for state laws regulating
insurance, see 471 U. S., at 739-747; it did not purport to add, by
its passing reference to
Shaw, any further gloss on §
514(a). And although we did conclude in
Shaw that both New
York laws at issue there related to "employee benefit plan[s]" in
general, 463 U. S., at 100, only the Human Rights Law, which barred
discrimination by ERISA plans, fell within the pre-emption
provision. See id., at 100106. As we have explained, the Disability
Benefits Law up-
133
held in
Shaw-though mandating the creation of a "welfare
plan" as defined in ERISA4-did not relate to a welfare plan subject
to ERISA regulation. Section 2(c)(2) does, and that is the end of
the matter. We cannot engraft a two-step analysis onto a one-step
statute.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly
Affirmed.
JUSTICE STEVENS, dissenting.
The basic question that this case presents is whether Congress
intended to prevent a State from computing workers' compensation
benefits on the basis of the entire remuneration of injured
employees when a portion of that remuneration is provided by an
employee benefit plan. By converting unnecessarily broad dicta
interpreting the words "relate to" as used in §514(a) of the
Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 29 U. S.
C. § 1144(a), into a rule of law, and by underestimating the
significance of the exemption of workers' compensation plans from
the coverage of the Act, the Court has reached an incorrect
conclusion in an unusually important case.
In today's world the typical employee's compensation is not just
her take-home pay; it often includes fringe benefits such as
vacation pay and health insurance. If an employee loses her job, by
reason of either a wrongful discharge or a negligently inflicted
physical injury, normal contract or tort principles would allow her
to recover damages measured by her entire loss of
earnings-including the value of fringe benefits such as health
insurance. If I understand the Court's reasoning today, a state
statute that merely announced that basic rule of damages law would
be pre-empted
4 "Welfare plans" include plans providing "benefits in the event
of sickness, accident, [or] disability." § 3(1),29 U. S. C. §
1002(1).
134
STEVENS, J., dissenting
by ERISA if it "specifically refers" to each component of the
damages calculation.
Ante, at 130.1
Workers' compensation laws provide a substitute for tort actions
by employees against their employers. They typically base the
amount of the compensation award on the level of the employee's
earnings at the time of the injury. In the District of Columbia's
workers' compensation law, for example, an employee's "average
weekly wages" provide the basic standard for computing the award
regardless of the nature of the injury. D. C. Code Ann. § 36-308
(1988 and Supp. 1992). Because an employee who receives health
insurance benefits typically has a correspondingly reduced average
weekly wage, the District decided to supplement the standard level
of workers' compensation with a component reflecting any health
insurance benefits the worker receives. The Court seems to be
holding today that such a supplement may never be measured by the
level of the employee's health insurance coverage-at least if the
state statutes or regulations specifically refer to that component
of the calculation.
It is true, as the Court points out, that in
Shaw v.
Delta Air Lines, Inc.,
463 U. S. 85, 96-97
(1983), we stated that a law "related to" an employee benefit plan,
"in the normal sense of the phrase, if it has a connection with or
reference to such a plan." It is also true that we have repeatedly
quoted that language in later opinions.2 Indeed, it has been
1 Similar arguments have been considered and rejected in several
cases.
See Martori Bros. Distributors v. James-Massengale,
781 F.2d
1349, 1358-1359 (CA9), modified,
791 F.2d
799, cert. denied, 479 U. S. 949 (1986); Teper v. Park West
Galleries, Inc., 431 Mich. 202, 216, 427 N. W. 2d 535, 541 (1988);
Schultz v. National Coalition of Hispanic Mental Health and Human
Services Organizations, 678 F. Supp. 936, 938 (DC 1988);
Jaskilka
2 See Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. McClendon,
498 U. S. 133, 138-139
(1990); FMC Corp. v. Holliday,
498 U. S. 52, 58-59
(1990); Mackey v. Lanier Collection Agency & Service, Inc.,
486 U. S. 825,
829 (1988); Fort Halifax Packing Co. v. Coyne,
482 U. S. 1, 11 (1987);
Pilot Life Ins. Co. v. Dedeaux,
135
reiterated so often that petitioners did not challenge the
proposition that the statute at issue in this case "related to"
respondent's ERISA plan. It nevertheless is equally true that until
today that broad reading of the phrase has not been necessary to
support any of this Court's actual holdings.
Given the open-ended implications of today's holding and the
burgeoning volume of litigation involving ERISA preemption claims,3
I think it is time to take a fresh look at the intended scope of
the pre-emption provision that Congress enacted. Let me begin by
repeating the qualifying language in the
Shaw opinion itself
and by emphasizing one word in the statutory text that is often
overlooked.
After explaining why the two New York statutes at issue
related to benefit plans, we noted:
"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. Cf. American Telephone and
Telegraph Co. v. Merry, 592 F.2d
118, 121 (CA2 1979) (state garnishment of a spouse's pension
income to enforce alimony and support orders is not pre-empted).
The present litigation plainly does not present a borderline
question, and we express no views about where it would be
appropriate to draw the line." Id., at 100, n. 21.
481 U. S. 41,
47-48 (1987);
Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v.
Massachusetts, 471 U. S. 724, 739
(1985).
3 Several years ago a District Judge who had read "nearly 100
cases about the reach of the ERISA preemption clause" concluded
that "common sense should not be left at the courthouse door." See
Schultz v.
National Coalition of Hispanic Mental Health
and Human Services Organizations, 678 F. Supp., at 938. A
recent LEXIS search indicates that there are now over 2,800
judicial opinions addressing ERISA pre-emption. This growth may be
a consequence of the growing emphasis on the meaning of the words
"relate to," thus pre-empting reliance on what the District Judge
referred to as "common sense."
136
In deciding where that line should be drawn, I would begin by
emphasizing the fact that the so-called "pre-emption" provision in
ERISA does not use the word "pre-empt." It provides that the
provisions of the federal statute shall
"supersede any and
all State laws insofar as they may now or hereafter relate to any
employee benefit plan described in section l003(a) of this title
and not exempt under section l003(b) of this title." 29 U. S. C. §
1144(a) (emphasis added). Thus the federal statute displaces state
regulation in the field that is regulated by ERISA; it expressly
disavows an intent to supersede state regulation of exempt plans;
and its text is silent about possible pre-emption of state
regulation of subjects not regulated by the federal statute. Thus,
if we were to decide this case on the basis of nothing more than
the text of the statute itself, we would find no pre-emption (more
precisely, no "supersession") of the District's regulation of
health benefits for employees receiving workers' compensation
because that subject is entirely unregulated by ERISA.4
I would not decide this case on that narrow ground, however,
because both the legislative history of ERISA and
4 See, e. g., Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc.,
505 U. S. 504, 516
(1992):
"Consideration of issues arising under the Supremacy Clause
'start[s] with the assumption that the historic police powers of
the States [are] not to be superseded by ... Federal Act unless
that [is] the clear and manifest purpose of Congress.'
Rice
v.
Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218, 230
(1947). Accordingly,' "[t]he purpose of Congress is the ultimate
touchstone'" of pre-emption analysis.
Malone v.
White
Motor Corp., 435
U. S. 497, 504 (1978) (quoting
Retail Clerks v.
Schermerhorn, 375 U. S. 96, 103 (1963))
.
. . . "In the absence of an express congressional command, state
law is pre-empted if that law actually conflicts with federal law,
see
Pacific Gas &
Elec. Co. v.
Energy
Resources Conservation and Development Comm'n, 461 U. S. 190, 204
(1983), or if federal law so thoroughly occupies a legislative
field '''as to make reasonable the inference that Congress left no
room for the States to supplement it.'''
Fidelity Fed. Sav.
&
Loan Assn. v.
De la Cuesta, 458 U. S. 141, 153 (1982)
(quoting
Rice v.
Sante Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S.,
at 230)."
137
prior holdings by this Court have given the supersession
provision a broader reading. Thus, for example, in
Shaw
itself we held that the New York Human Rights Law, which prohibited
employers from structuring their employee benefit plans in a manner
that discriminated on the basis of pregnancy, was pre-empted even
though ERISA did not contain any superseding regulatory provisions.
463 U. S., at 98. State laws that directly regulate ERISA plans, or
that make it necessary for plan administrators to operate such
plans differently, "relate to" such plans in the sense intended by
Congress. In my opinion, a state law's mere reference to an ERISA
plan is an insufficient reason for concluding that it is
pre-empted-particularly when the state law itself is related almost
solely to plans that Congress expressly excluded from the coverage
of ERISA. It is anomalous to conclude that ERISA has superseded
state regulation in an area that is expressly excluded from the
coverage of ERISA.
The statute at issue in this case does not regulate any ERISA
plan or require any ERISA plan administrator to make any changes in
the administration of such a plan. Although the statute may grant
injured employees who receive health insurance a better
compensation package than those who are not so insured, it does so
only to prevent a converse windfall going to injured employees who
receive high weekly wages and little or no health insurance
coverage.5 Even if the District's statute did encourage an employer
to pay higher wages instead of providing better fringe benefits,
that would surely be no reason to infer a congressional intent to
supersede state regulation of a category of compensation programs
that it exempted from federal coverage. Moreover, by requiring an
injured worker's compensation to reflect his entire pay package,
the statute attempts to replace
fully the lost earning power
of every injured employee. Noth-
5 One of the statute's stated goals was "to promote a fairer
system of compensation." Preamble to District of Columbia's
Workers' Compensation Equity Amendment Act of 1990, 37 D. C.
Register 6890 (Nov. 1990).
138
STEVENS, J., dissenting
ing in ERISA suggests an intent to supersede the State's efforts
to enact fair and complete remedies for work-related injuries; it
is difficult to imagine how a State could measure an injured
worker's health benefits without referring to the specific health
benefits that worker receives. Any State that wishes to effect the
equitable goal of the District's statute will be forced by the
Court's opinion to require a predetermined rate of health insurance
coverage that bears no relation to the compensation package of each
injured worker. The Court thereby requires workers' compensation
laws to shed their most characteristic element: postinjury
compensation based on each individual worker's preinjury level of
compensation.
Instead of mechanically repeating earlier dictionary definitions
of the word "relate" as its only guide to decision in an important
and difficult area of statutory construction, the Court should
pause to consider, first, the wisdom of the basic rule disfavoring
federal pre-emption of state laws, and second, the specific
concerns identified in the legislative history as the basis for
federal pre-emption. The most expansive statement of that purpose
was quoted in our opinion in
Shaw. As explained by
Congressman Dent, the "crowning achievement" of the legislation was
the" 'reservation to Federal authority [of] the sole power to
regulate the field of employee benefit plans. With the preemption
of the field, we round out the protection afforded participants by
eliminating the threat of conflicting and inconsistent State and
local regulation.'"
Id., at 99 (quoting 120 Congo Rec. 29197
(1974)).
The statute at issue in this case does not regulate even one
inch of the pre-empted field, and poses no threat whatsoever of
conflicting and inconsistent state regulation. By its holding today
the Court enters uncharted territory. Where that holding will
ultimately lead, I do not venture to predict. I am persuaded,
however, that the Court has already taken a step that Congress
neither intended nor foresaw.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
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