Advocate Health Care Network v. Stapleton
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 5, 2017 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- June 5, 2017
- Term
- October Term 2016
- Vote
- 8–0
- Majority author
- Justice Kagan
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) exempts "church plan[s]" from its otherwise-comprehensive regulation of employee benefit plans. 88 Stat. 840, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 1003(b)(2). Under the statute, certain plans for the employees of churches or church-affiliated nonprofits count as "church plans" even though not actually administered by a church. See § 1002(33)(C)(i). The question presented here is whether a church must have originally established such a plan for it to so qualify. ERISA, we hold, does not impose that requirement. I Petitioners identify themselves as three church-affiliated nonprofits that run hospitals and other healthcare facilities (collectively, hospitals). They offer defined-benefit pension plans to their employees. Those plans were established by the hospitals themselves-not by a church-and are managed by internal employee-benefits committees. ERISA generally obligates private employers offering pension plans to adhere to an array of rules designed to ensure plan solvency and protect plan participants. See generally New York State Conference of Blue Cross & Blue Shield Plans v. Travelers Ins. Co., 514 U.S. 645, 651, 115 S.Ct. 1671, 131 L.Ed.2d 695 (1995) (cataloguing ERISA's "reporting and disclosure mandates," "participation and vesting requirements," and "funding standards").…
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