Category: Preemption

WA Long Term Care Tax Not Preempted By ERISA, Says Federal Court

We previously blogged about the questions whether the Washington State Long Term Care Act is preempted by ERISA. On April 25, 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington dismissed a lawsuit challenging the law on the basis of, among other things, ERISA preemption. The federal court held the law is not preempted by ERISA.

Most Washingtonians are by now familiar with the Washington State Long Term Care Act. The law deducts a percentage of employees’ wages to pay for future state long-term care benefits. The question at issue in the lawsuit was whether this arrangement violates ERISA, which generally prevents states from regulating employee benefit plans.

The court ruled that it does not. The ruling emphasizes that ERISA applies only to benefits “established or maintained” by employers. But the law “is a creation of the Washington Legislature, which, in this context, is neither an employer nor an employee organization as defined by ERISA” according to the court.

After finding ERISA did not apply, the court remanded the case to the Washington State courts to decide the plaintiffs’ other challenges to the law because, with ERISA off the table, there was no basis for the lawsuit to be in federal court.

Don’t Assume All Employer-Adjacent Insurance is ERISA-governed, Says Ninth Circuit

There’s often an erroneous assumption that any insurance a person buys in connection with their employment is automatically subject to ERISA. But ERISA does not regulate all employer-adjacent insurance. ERISA only applies to employee benefit “plans.” Whether an ERISA “plan” exists can be complex, but without one, an insurance policy will not be subject to ERISA even if an employer was involved in its purchase.

A recent Ninth Circuit decision is a good reminder of this. In Steiglemann v. Symetra Life Ins. Co., the appellate court determined that an insurance policy purchased in connection with the plaintiff’s employment was not subject to ERISA because the requirements for an employee benefit “plan” were not met. The decision is unpublished, meaning it may be persuasive to lower courts but is not binding.

Jill Steiglemann bought a disability insurance policy from Symetra Life Insurance Company. She had access to the policy through her membership in a trade association for insurance agents. Her company paid for the insurance. The lower court held that the policy was part of an employee benefit plan and subject to ERISA.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court and held that the policy was not governed by ERISA. Even though Steiglemann’s employer arranged for the option for her to buy coverage and paid premiums, this was not enough to show the employer established an ERISA plan.

The employer never contracted to provide for coverage. It never promised to act as an administrator for the insurance. And it never took the steps necessary to maintain an ERISA plan, like recordkeeping and filing returns with the Department of Labor.

Steiglemann’s trade association also did not do the things necessary to create an ERISA plan. The association did not function for the main purpose of representing employees against their employer.

There was therefore no evidence that Steiglemann’s insurance policy was part of an employee benefit plan. And without a plan, the policy was not subject to ERISA.

This decision is a helpful reminder not to assume that ERISA applies to all employer-adjacent insurance.

Is Washington’s New Long Term Care Insurance Law Preempted by ERISA?

Washington State recently passed the Long Term Care Trust Act. The Act, approved by the legislature in 2019, sets up a state fund to pay for future long term care expenses like home nursing care, memory care, transportation, etc. The legislature passed the act to try to stave off a future crisis in which elderly or disabled folks in Washington won’t be able to afford these services. Currently, uninsured folks needing long term care typically fall back on state Medicaid benefits. There is concern that this will become unsustainable, particularly as more and more elderly folks need this care but can’t afford it.

The Long Term Care Act tries to cushion this blow by providing an employee-funded benefit to pay for future long term care. Starting January 1, 2022, employees in Washington State will pay a .58% payroll tax into the state long term care fund. Employers will be responsible for processing the tax and remitting the money to the fund.

This will probably lead to lawsuits challenging the Act as preempted by ERISA. ERISA generally prevents states from making their own laws regarding employee benefit plans. Whether this provision–known as “preemption”–applies to the Long Term Care Act will likely be whether the Act requires enough involvement by employers for courts to treat it as an employee benefit plan.

The Act’s critics say it obviously does. It can’t be disputed that long-term care insurance is an employee benefit that can be subject to ERISA if provided through an employee benefit plan. How, the critics say, could a law requiring employers to process payroll deductions for the purpose of providing benefits the employees only get because they’re working be anything but an employee benefit plan?

The answer might not be so simple. The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly held that ERISA does not preempt state laws requiring employers to provide benefits to their workers unless the law requires the employer to operate a so-called “administrative scheme.” For example, in the 1987 case Fort Halifax Packing Co. v. Coyne, the Supreme Court ruled that a Maine law mandating severance pay for workers fired during plant closures was not preempted by ERISA because it didn’t require the employer to do much more than write a check in an amount determined by the state. That decision explains that Congress’ purpose in stopping states from passing laws regulating employee benefit plans is to protect employers from burdensome state-law requirements that might discourage them from offering benefit plans to their employees. The Maine law didn’t do this because it didn’t require the employer to set up any kind of “administrative” scheme for the severance benefit but simply write a check when laying off workers: “To do little more than write a check hardly constitutes the operation of a benefit plan.”

If writing a check to your employee for an amount the state tells you isn’t an administrative scheme, it wouldn’t be hard for a court to rule that deducting money from their paychecks in an amount determined by the state isn’t one either.

It’s been a while since the U.S. Supreme Court has weighed in on a similar issue, so the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (the federal appellate court where any challenge to the Long Term Care Act is likely to wind up), will probably follow the Fort Halifax case. That’s what the Ninth Circuit did in deciding challenges to similar laws over the last few years.

For instance, in 2008, the Ninth Circuit found ERISA did not preempt a San Francisco ordinance requiring employers to pay for employee health care in Golden Gate Restaurant Association v. City and County of San Francisco. The court relied on the Fort Halifax case to determine the ordinance did not require employers to create an employee benefit plan. The court emphasized that an ERISA plan is not created by legislation that merely requires employers to pay money based on the number of hours worked by their employees.

More recently, earlier in 2021, the Ninth Circuit applied the same reasoning to hold a Seattle ordinance requiring employers to pay for employee health care was not preempted by ERISA in ERISA Industry Committee v. City of Seattle. The court relied on Fort Halifax as well as Golden Gate Restaurant Association. That decision was short, terse, and unpublished (meaning it lacks precedential value, an indication the court considered the issue largely settled by prior caselaw and not deserving of significant thought).

This suggests the courts will probably consider the Washington Long Term Care Trust Act along similar lines. Applying the Fort Halifax and Golden Gate Restaurant Association tests may make challenges to the Act difficult. After all, these cases arguably say Washington State could require employers to pay directly for employee benefits so long as the state is doing the math on the amount of the contributions. The main difference between these laws and the Act is that it’s the employees paying for the benefits provided by the Act rather than the employers. Since the employers just have to collect the money from their employees, it will be easy for a court to apply the Supreme Court’s reasoning from the Fort Halifax case that “To do little more than write a check hardly constitutes the operation of a benefit plan.”

State Laws Automatically Revoking Spousal Life Insurance Benefits Upon Divorce Upheld By U.S. Supreme Court

An important dispute when a person dies is often who gets the life insurance policy death benefit.  The life insurance policy may have been purchased decades ago and name the insured’s former spouse, from whom the insured was divorced long ago.  The insured’s children or other alternate beneficiaries often argue the insured really intended the death benefit go to them, not to the spouse they divorced decades before their death.

To avoid this uncertainty, Washington State, like many states, has a law providing that life insurance beneficiary designations to spouses are automatically void upon divorce.  Thus, if a married person buys a life insurance policy providing the insurer pays her husband upon her death, and subsequently divorces her husband, the husband is automatically removed as the beneficiary upon the divorce.  This avoids a potential probate court fight when the insured dies.

On June 11, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Sveen v. Melin, upholding a similar law in Minnesota.  The Supreme Court confirmed states like Washington may provide that life insurance beneficiary designations to spouses automatically terminate upon divorce.

In Sveen, Mark Sveen was married to Kaye Melin in 1997.  Sveen purchased a life insurance policy naming Melin as the primary beneficiary and his two children from a prior marriage as contingent beneficiaries.  Sveen and Melin divorced in 2007, but their divorce failed to address the life insurance policy.  Sven never amended the policy’s beneficiary designation.  After Sveen died, his children and Melin made competing claims for the life insurance policy death benefit.

Under Minnesota law, the divorce automatically revoked Sveen’s designation of Melin as his primary beneficiary, resulting in Sveen’s children receiving the life insurance policy death benefit.    Melin argued the law violated the U.S. Constitution’s “contracts clause” because the law was enacted after the policy was purchased.

The court upheld the law.  Reviewing the long history of state laws presuming “that the average Joe does not want his ex inheriting what he leaves behind,” the court observed these laws have utility in simplifying probate litigation by giving certainty about decades-old life insurance policy benefits.  The court noted Minnesota’s law allowed Sveen to re-designate Melin as his beneficiary after the divorce if he desired, so it imposed only a minimal burden on existing contracts.

The court’s decision to uphold Minnesota’s law provides additional certainty to Washington insureds and their heirs and beneficiaries regarding the treatment of life insurance death benefit proceeds.