Cite as: 536 U. S. 355 (2002)
Thomas, J., dissenting
claim beyond the benefits available in any action brought under § 1132(a)," and characterizing it as "something akin to a mandate for second-opinion practice in order to ensure sound medical judgments." Ante, at 379-380, 384. Neither approach is sound.
The Court of Appeals' approach assumes that a State may impose an alternative enforcement mechanism through mandated contract terms even though it could not otherwise impose such an enforcement mechanism on a health plan governed by ERISA. No party cites any authority for that novel proposition, and I am aware of none. Cf. Fort Halifax Packing Co. v. Coyne, 482 U. S. 1, 16-17 (1987) (noting that a State cannot avoid ERISA pre-emption on the ground that its regulation only mandates a benefit plan; such an approach would "permit States to circumvent ERISA's pre-emption provision, by allowing them to require directly what they are forbidden to regulate"). To hold otherwise would be to eviscerate ERISA's comprehensive and exclusive remedial scheme because a claim to benefits under an employee benefits plan could be determined under each State's particular remedial devices so long as they were made contract terms. Such formalist tricks cannot be sufficient to bypass ERISA's exclusive remedies; we should not interpret ERISA in such a way as to destroy it.
With respect to the Court's position, Congress' intention that § 502(a) be the exclusive remedy for rights guaranteed under ERISA has informed this Court's weighing of the pre-emption and saving clauses. While the Court has previously focused on ERISA's overall enforcement mechanism and remedial scheme, see infra, at 393-394, the Court today ignores the "interlocking, interrelated, and interdependent" nature of that remedial scheme and announces that the relevant inquiry is whether a state regulatory scheme "provides [a] new cause of action" or authorizes a "new form of ultimate relief." Ante, at 379. These newly created principles have no roots in the precedents of this Court. That § 4-10 also
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