OCTOBER TERM, 2000
Syllabus
certiorari to the supreme court of washington
No. 99-1529. Argued November 8, 2000—Decided March 21, 2001
While David A. Egelhoff was married to petitioner, he designated her as the beneficiary of a life insurance policy and pension plan provided by his employer and governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). Shortly after petitioner and Mr. Egelhoff divorced, Mr. Egelhoff died intestate. Respondents, Mr. Egelhoff's children by a previous marriage, filed separate suits against petitioner in state court to recover the insurance proceeds and pension plan benefits. They relied on a Washington statute that provides that the designation of a spouse as the beneficiary of a nonprobate asset—defined to include a life insurance policy or employee benefit plan—is revoked automatically upon divorce. Respondents argued that in the absence of a qualified named beneficiary, the proceeds would pass to them as Mr. Egel-hoff's statutory heirs under state law. The trial courts concluded that both the insurance policy and the pension plan should be administered in accordance with ERISA, and granted petitioner summary judgment in both cases. The Washington Court of Appeals consolidated the cases and reversed, concluding that the statute was not pre-empted by ERISA. The State Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the statute, although applicable to employee benefit plans, does not "refe[r] to" or have a "connection with" an ERISA plan that would compel pre-emption under that statute.
Held: The state statute has a connection with ERISA plans and is therefore expressly pre-empted. Pp. 146-152.
(a) ERISA's pre-emption section, 29 U. S. C. § 1144(a), states that ERISA "shall supersede any and all State laws insofar as they may now or hereafter relate to any employee benefit plan" covered by ERISA. A state law relates to an ERISA plan "if it has a connection with or reference to such a plan." Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 463 U. S. 85, 97. To determine whether there is a forbidden connection, the Court looks both to ERISA's objectives as a guide to the scope of the state law that Congress understood would survive, as well as to the nature of the state law's effect on ERISA plans. California Div. of Labor Standards Enforcement v. Dillingham Constr., N. A., Inc., 519 U. S. 316, 325. Applying this framework, the state statute has an impermissible connection with ERISA plans, as it binds plan administrators to a
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