Law Commons^™

Revisiting Erisa’S Church Plan Exemption After Advocate Health Care Network V. Stapleton, Emily Morrison

Northwestern University Law Review

For much of the last forty years, ERISA’s church plan exemption has existed quietly without much fanfare. But increased litigation over the last five years has dragged the exemption into the spotlight. The litigation focuses on religiously affiliated hospital systems and whether their pension plans have been correctly classified as church plans exempt from ERISA.

This Note examines the history behind the church plan exemption, including statutory modifications made in 1980 and the IRS’s longstanding interpretation of these changes, which precipitated the dispute at issue in the current wave of litigation. While the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Advocate …

Western Cab Co. V. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 10, (Mar. 16, 2017), Sydney Campau

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

An employer challenged the validity of Nevada’s Minimum Wage Amendment (MWA). The Court held that (1) the MWA is not preempted by the NLRA, (2) the MWA is not preempted by ERISA, and (3) the MWA is not unconstitutionally vague. The Court declined to address factual issues related to the employer’s wage calculations.

Dinner For Two: Employer Mandate, Meet Erisa; How Dave & Buster’S Response To The Affordable Care Act’S Employer Mandate May Open The Door For Employees To Seek Erisa Relief, Kendall Victoria Dacey

Pepperdine Law Review

When the Affordable Care Act (ACA) became law in late March, 2010, Dave & Buster’s (D&B) had a choice: it could either comply and offer its full-time employees the minimum health insurance coverage required by the new “employer mandate” or it could ignore the new requirements and incur a penalty. Dissatisfied with either option, D&B made the drastic decision to circumvent the ACA entirely, and reduced its full-time staff below the ACA’s employee threshold so as to avoid triggering any penalty or having to pay increased health care costs. However, by dodging the employer mandate, D&B may have come in …

Erisa Preemption After Gobeille V. Liberty Mutual: Completing The Retrenchment Of Shaw, Edward A. Zelinsky

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

Gobeille v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. is the U.S.Supreme Court’s most recent preemption decision under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). In Gobeille, the Court completed the process of reconciling the restrained approach to ERISA preemption announced in New York State Conference of Blue Cross & Blue Shield Plans v. Travelers Insurance Co. with the Court’s literal and expansive approach adopted earlier in Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc. Gobeille consummated this reconciliation by confirming the sub silentio retrenchment of Shaw and its “plain language” approach in favor of Traveler’s broader construction of ERISA preemption.

Gobeille held …

Protective Plan Provisions For Employer-Sponsored Employee Benefit Plans, Kathryn J. Kennedy

Kathryn J. Kennedy

Federal case law has provided plan sponsors of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) covered plans with the ability to insert plan provisions that are more favorable to the plan sponsor rather than the plan participant or beneficiary (so-called “protective plan provisions”). This Article first examines what is the “plan document” for purposes of ERISA and what protective plan provisions should be considered for insertion into the plan document and its related “instruments.”

Exhausted Yet? Stephens V. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation And The Application Of The Exhaustion Doctrine To Statute-Based Erisa Claims, Carson D. Phillips-Spotts

Maine Law Review

By 1974, the U.S. Congress recognized that employer-provided retirement pension plans had “become an important factor affecting the stabilization of employment and the successful development of industrial relations” and enacted the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) with the aim of protecting “the interests of participants in employee benefit plans and their beneficiaries.” In enacting ERISA, Congress established “standards of conduct, responsibility, and obligation[s] for fiduciaries of employee benefit plans” and provided for “appropriate remedies, sanctions and ready access to the Federal courts.” Apart from creating federal causes of action to ensure efficient and equitable administration of private pension plans, …