ERISA preemption of state laws is determined using the following three rules. First, ERISA permits state laws that do not diminish or enhance any of the ERISA basic benefit protections. Second, ERISA preempts any state law that diminishes or enhances any of the three ERISA basic benefit...

The article supplements the two classic legislative histories of ERISA: (1) James A. Wooten, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 — A Political History (2004) and (2) Staff of S. Comm. on Labor and Public Welfare, Leg. History of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of...

This article discusses when a pension or welfare plan governed by ERISA must comply with state law reporting, record-keeping and disclosure mandates. Any such mandate directed at an ERISA plan, a plan participant or beneficiary, a plan sponsor or contributing employer, or a third party's...

A young man, Christopher Jackson (“Christopher”), strangled to death his grandmother, Rosemarie Little (“Rosemarie”), a beloved Skadden Arps legal secretary and churchgoing woman, who had chosen Christopher to receive part of her death benefits under her employer's 401(k) plan and life...

In September, the Ways-and-Means Committee of the House approved proposals to substantially improve the equity of retirement tax incentives for American workers. The new requirement that employers automatically enroll employees in a simple defined contribution plan, and the new refundable...

In New York, surviving spouses are protected by the right of election. But there is an unjust and avoidable flaw in those protections for the surviving spouses of New York public sector retirees: they may be left with no survivor benefits whatsoever, because the default benefit is an annuity...

Part I of this Article proposes that ERISA severely limits the ability of individuals to release their claims to ERISA plan benefit entitlements. lt;brgt;lt;brgt;The ERISA prohibition of any agreement purporting to relieve fiduciaries of their duties voids any attempt to release claims to any...

In Kennedy v. DuPont Savings and Investment Plan (the quot;DuPont Planquot;), 2009 U.S. LEXIS 869 (January 26, 2009) the Supreme Court appeared to proclaim a quot;bright-line rulequot; that plan documents determine ERISA plan distributions. However, the Court blurred the bright-line rules...