§ 4.3.6.1 THE GENERAL RULE

• Jurisdiction: Arizona

§ 4.3.6.1 The General Rule. Although ERISA preemption issues can be analytically complex, the general rule is easily articulated. ERISA preempts any and all state laws that relate to an ERISA covered employee benefit plan.⁶⁸ There are eleven statutory exceptions to this rule and one which has been formed by operation of federal common law.⁶⁹

The watershed case for purposes of ERISA preemption was the Supreme Court's decision in Shaw v. Delta Air Lines.⁷⁰ From 1983 to 1993, the Supreme Court averaged at least one ruling per year interpreting the ERISA preemption clause.⁷¹ These cases, as well as the countless federal court of appeals decisions, have resolved a number of issues which, in turn, established ERISA as a statute that broadly preempts state laws regarding employee benefit plans.

There has been a second set of watershed developments in the law relating to application of the ERISA preemption clause.⁷² Mechanically, the Supreme Court has widened the concept of those state laws that are too "remote or peripheral" to ERISA concerns to justify preemption.⁷³ There are suggestions that philosophically, the Court may be shifting toward an approach that is more similar to traditional "occupation of the field" and conflict preemption concepts.⁷⁴ The essence of the problem the Supreme Court is attempting to address is that, despite nearly annual review on the subject, the flow of new issues appears to be increasing rather than decreasing. This seems to suggest to some members of the Court that there must be something wrong with the analytical formula for applying the "relates to" test described in the statute and amplified in Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc.⁷⁵

In Dillingham, the Court observed:

Since shortly after its enactment, we have endeavored with some regularity to interpret and apply the "unhelpful text" of ERISA's pre-emption provision. New York State Conference of Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans v. Travelers Ins. Co., 514 U.S. 645, 656 (1995). We have long acknowledged that ERISA's pre-emption provision is "clearly expansive." Id., at 655. It has: "a 'broad scope,' Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Massachusetts, 471 U.S. 724, 739 (1985), and an 'expansive sweep,' Pilot Life Ins. Co. v. Dedeaux, 481 U.S. 41, 47 (1987); and . . . it is 'broadly worded,' Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. McClendon, 498 U.S. 133, 138 (1990), 'deliberately expansive,' Pilot Life, supra, at 46, and 'conspicuous for its breadth,' [FMC Corp. v. Holliday, 498 U.S. 52, 58 (1990)]." Morales v....