Chapter 10: Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA): Toward a Reasonable and Coherent Framework

Authors

Maria O'Brien, Boston University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-2023

Editor(s)

Ryan Vacca and Ann Bartow

ISBN

9781479817856

Publisher

NYU Press

Language

en-US

Abstract

Few federal statutes have as direct an impact on the lives of average Americans as the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).1 The obscure but complicated 1974 statute regulates nearly every employterm ee’s health insurance, group life insurance, pension, long-­and short-­ disability coverage, and numerous other work-­ based benefits. It created a regulatory regime that has not been fully effective at protecting employees by ensuring that employers keep retirement-­ related promises. Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s principal contribution to ERISA jurisprudence was a pragmatic sensibility consistently grounded in basic fairness for plan participants (employees and their dependents), with a strong distaste for unpredictable, distorted, or peculiar outcomes.

When Ginsburg ascended to the Supreme Court in 1993, the Court was grappling with myriad issues presented by this poorly drafted statute. Health care was relatively affordable in 1974,2 but by 1993 health care costs in the United States were rising rapidly.3 By the mid 1990s, employer-­ sponsored health insurance litigation was accelerating in both federal and state courts. And ERISA, which was crafted primarily to ad1974 dress defects in the pre-­ world of defined benefit pension plans,4 was repeatedly scrutinized during efforts to resolve the battles that ensued when plan sponsors simultaneously confronted longer lifespans and dramatic increases in health care costs and life-­ saving technology.5 Plan participants wanted and needed more, while employers scrambled to reduce, offload, and/or exclude costs. This dynamic environment triggered important cases before the Court.

Recommended Citation

Maria O'Brien, Chapter 10: Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA): Toward a Reasonable and Coherent Framework , The Jurisprudential Legacy of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg 136 (Ryan Vacca and Ann Bartow ed., 2023).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/3983