142
Syllabus
particular choice of rules for determining beneficiary status. Administrators must pay benefits to the beneficiaries chosen by state law, rather than to those identified in the plan documents. The statute thus implicates an area of core ERISA concern, running counter to ERISA's commands that a plan shall "specify the basis on which payments are made to and from the plan," § 1102(b)(4), and that the fiduciary shall administer the plan "in accordance with the documents and instruments governing the plan," § 1104(a)(1)(D). The state statute also has a prohibited connection with ERISA plans because it interferes with nationally uniform plan administration. Administrators cannot make payments simply by identifying the beneficiary specified in the plan documents, but must familiarize themselves with state statutes so that they can determine whether the named beneficiary's status has been "revoked" by operation of law. The burden is exacerbated by the choice-of-law problems that may confront an administrator when the employer, the plan participant, and the participant's former spouse live in different States. Although the Washington statute provides protection for administrators who have no actual knowledge of a divorce, they still face the risk that a court might later find that they did have such knowledge. If they instead decide to await the results of litigation among putative beneficiaries before paying benefits, they will simply transfer to the beneficiaries the costs of delay and uncertainty. Requiring administrators to master the relevant laws of 50 States and to contend with litigation would undermine the congressional goal of minimizing their administrative and financial burdens. Differing state regulations affecting an ERISA plan's system for processing claims and paying benefits impose precisely the burden that ERISA pre-emption was intended to avoid. Fort Halifax Packing Co. v. Coyne, 482 U. S. 1, 10. Pp. 146-150. (b) Respondents' reasons why ordinary ERISA pre-emption analysis should not apply here—that the state statute allows employers to opt out; that it involves areas of traditional state regulation; and that if ERISA pre-empts this statute, it also must pre-empt the various state statutes providing that a murdering heir is not entitled to receive property as a result of the killing—are rejected. Pp. 150-152.
139 Wash. 2d 557, 989 P. 2d 80, reversed and remanded.
Thomas, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, and Ginsburg, JJ., joined. Scalia, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Ginsburg, J., joined, post, p. 152. Breyer, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens, J., joined, post, p. 153.
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