The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) aims to balance the dual policies of (1) ensuring fair and prompt enforcement of rights under employee benefit plans, and (2) encouraging the creation of such plans. To strike this balance, ERISA pairs comprehensive rules regarding fiduciary responsibility with federal causes of action that allow plan participants and beneficiaries to recover benefits due, enforce ERISA’s mandates, obtain injunctive relief, and, where applicable, obtain attorney’s fees. At the same time, to protect employers and plan sponsors from operating under a patchwork of potentially conflicting state and local regulations, ERISA promotes uniformity in benefits administration by preempting “any and all state laws insofar as they may now or hereafter relate to” any ERISA benefit plan. 29 U.S.C. § 1144(a).
The Supreme Court is currently considering a petition for certiorari that addresses the application of ERISA preemption to local “play-or-pay” laws. Ostensibly, these location-specific laws are intended to improve low-wage employee access to affordable health coverage by requiring large employers to make enhanced healthcare expenditures on behalf of such employees who reside in that location. To evade ERISA preemption, these laws typically provide that, instead of altering their existing ERISA plans to accommodate the enhanced benefits, employers can simply cut a check in the same amount directly to their employees, or in some cases the...
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