Cite as: 520 U. S. 833 (1997)
Breyer, J., dissenting
does with his pension money at his death. That is not surprising, for after the death of a beneficiary the money is no longer needed for that beneficiary's support. And if ERISA does not embody a congressional purpose to restrict what Isaac can do with his pension funds after his death, there is no reason to believe it embodies some similar general purpose with respect to Dorothy. Insofar as the pension is community property, it belongs to both Dorothy and Isaac equally; it is just as much hers as his. Why, then, should ERISA restrict her testamentary power in respect to her property any more than it restricts his?
I see one possible answer to this question. One might argue that, because Dorothy was the first to die, her testamentary transfer gave to third parties (persons to whom ERISA is indifferent) funds that Isaac might otherwise have used during his retirement; and, for that reason, the testamentary transfer tends to frustrate the purpose of the "anti-alienation" provision or some more general ERISA purpose. This argument (with one exception, see Part II-B-3, infra) is beside the point, however, for the state-law action here seeks an accounting that will take place after the deaths of both Dorothy and Isaac. Moreover, the argument depends upon doubtful assumptions about Congress' purposes. Consider the 96 shares of stock and $150,000 cash that Isaac received from the plans when he retired. Dorothy's bequest affects those assets—the stock and the cash—not while they remain in BellSouth's pension plan funds, but only after they have emerged from the plan in the form of a distributed payment. As far as ERISA is concerned, Isaac could have used the retirement benefits to pay for a vacation, to buy a house, or to bet at the races, or he could have given the money to his children. ERISA would have left Dorothy similarly free to do what she wished with her share of the stock and the cash, had she been alive at the time of their receipt. That being so, I do not understand why or how ERISA could be concerned about Dorothy's creation of a will, which affected
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