WV Public Employees Insurance Plan Is Exempt from ERISA
I am indebted to Roy Harmon, who writes Health Plan Law, for his explanation of the basis for the Fourth Circuit’s opinion in Martine v. Hertz Corp., 103 F.3d 118 (4th Cir. 1996), which held that West Virginia’s Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA) had no right of subrogation against a verdict obtained by its insured for personal injuries.
In his dissent in Turner ex rel. Turner v. Turner, Justice Larry Starcher had suggested that Martine held that ERISA does not preempt West Virginia’s made-whole doctrine.
As I noted in my post about the dissent, the Fourth Circuit did not explicitly hold that ERISA does not preempt the made-whole doctrine in West Virginia. But, as Roy explained in a post at ERISABoard, the PEIA is a governmental plan and therefore exempt from coverage under ERISA. So, the Martine Court would have had no need to discuss, much less apply, ERISA or whether ERISA barred the made-whole doctrine.
Although Justice Starcher disagrees with the majority’s decision in Turner, while conceding that it was "technically correct," his opinion illustrates what happens often when state courts delve into ERISA issues.
