A few days ago, I wrote about a recent United States District Court
decision awarding benefits to the widow of a man who had accidentally overdosed on prescription medications.
I noted that based on ERISA pre-emption, almost all such cases have to be brought in federal court, where the claims and damages available to plaintiffs are very limited.
Today, in the Boston ERISA Law Blog, Stephen Rosenberg pokes a little fun at The Wall Street Journal Law Blog’s fascination this week with the doctrine of pre-emption, and accurately describes ERISA pre-emption (which the WSJ Law Blog has omitted from its discussion) as “the most important and interesting application of preemption ….”
Rosenberg also points out that efforts by states to require employers to provide health care coverage to their employees demonstrate that ERISA pre-emption “is in fact the one area of preemption that consistently affects broad numbers of everyday, real life people ….” He is referring to Maryland’s Fair Share Act, which was held by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Retail Industry Leaders' Association v. Fielder, 475 F.3d 180 (4th Cir. 2007), to be pre-empted by ERISA, and to efforts by California to provide universal health coverage. Rosenberg's post from August 27, entitled "California, Health Insurance and ERISA Preemption," includes a link to a paper on the topic by University of Maryland Professor Sharon Reece and a post by the Workplace Prof Blog.
Rosenberg seems to doubt the success of such efforts (and he appears to be right, according to The Wall Street Journal article referenced above), but Brian King at the ERISA Law Blog has a contrary view, in this post from April 27.
My own view is that unless Congress amends ERISA’s pre-emption language (highly unlikely, at least in the short term) or the United States Supreme Court holds that ERISA’s scope of pre-emption is too broad (even more unlikely, given the enormous body of federal law, including, significantly, decisions from the Supreme Court, which has repeatedly endorsed that scope as demonstrating Congressional intent), legislation like California’s will be pre-empted.
