Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation v. R. A. Gray & Co. (467 U.S. 717)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 18, 1984 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 467 U.S. 717 · 104 S. Ct. 2709
- Decided
- June 18, 1984
- Term
- October Term 1983
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Brennan
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Brennan delivered the opinion of the Court. The question presented by these cases is whether application of the withdrawal liability provisions of the Multi-employer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1980 to employers withdrawing from pension plans during a 5-month period prior to the statute’s enactment violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. We hold that it does not. I — I <C In 1974, after careful study of private retirement pension plans, Congress enacted the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), 88 Stat. 829, 29 U. S. C. § 1001 et seq. Among the principal purposes of this “comprehensive and reticulated statute” was to ensure that employees and their beneficiaries would not be deprived of anticipated retirement benefits by the termination of pension plans before sufficient funds have been accumulated in the plans. Nachman Corp. v. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., 446 U. S. 359, 361-362, 374-375 (1980). See Alessi v. Raybestos-Manhattan, Inc., 451 U. S. 504, 510-511 (1981). Congress wanted to guarantee that “if a worker has been promised a defined pension benefit upon retirement — and if he has fulfilled whatever conditions are required to obtain a vested benefit — he actually will receive it.” Nachman, supra, at 375; Alessi, supra, at 510. Toward this end, Title IV of ERISA, 29 U. S. C. § 1301 et seq., created a plan termination insurance…
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