Chapter 16
ERISA
Summary
- ERISA covers employee pension and welfare benefit plans that are established or maintained by employers, unions, or both, who are engaged in interstate commerce.
- With certain exceptions, covered welfare benefit plans include those established or maintained for the payment, through insurance or otherwise, of medical, accident, disability, death, severance, vacation and certain other fringe benefits.
- Covered plans must be reduced to writing and administered in accordance with their terms and the provisions of ERISA.
- Employers or other plan administrators must comply with detailed fiduciary, reporting, disclosure and other requirements.
- ERISA sets up a comprehensive enforcement scheme. Dissatisfied benefit claimants, for example, can seek relatively prompt equitable relief and attorney's fees under ERISA, but they cannot recover potentially unlimited damage awards based on state tort and contract theories. ERISA's enforcement provisions also authorize, among other things, civil suits to enforce fiduciary responsibilities, penalties for non-compliance with the statute and even criminal sanctions.
- Although there are exceptions, many state laws that “relate to” covered employee benefit plans are “preempted” or displaceds.