Unum Life Insurance Company of America v. John E. Ward (526 U.S. 358)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided April 20, 1999 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 526 U.S. 358 · 119 S. Ct. 1380
- Decided
- April 20, 1999
- Term
- October Term 1998
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court. This case, brought under § 502(a) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 88 Stat. 891, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 1132(a), concerns ERISA’s preemption and saving clauses. The preemption clause, § 514(a), 29 U. S. C. § 1144(a), broadly states that ERISA provisions “shall supersede... State laws” to the extent that those laws “relate to any employee benefit plan.” The saving clause, § 514(b)(2)(A), 29 U. S. C. § 1144(b)(2)(A), phrased with similar breadth, exempts from preemption “any law of any State which regulates insurance.” The key words “regulates insurance” in § 514(b)(2)(A), and “relate to” in § 514(a), once again require interpretation, for their meaning is not “plain”; sensible construction of ERISA, our decisions indicate, requires that we measure these words in context. See Pilot Life Ins. Co. v. Dedeaux, 481 U. S. 41, 47 (1987) (noting that repeated calls for interpretation are not surprising in view of “the wide variety of state statutory and decisional law arguably affected” by ERISA’s preemption and saving clauses). The context here is a suit to recover disability benefits under an ERISA-governed insurance policy issued by defendant-petitioner UNUM Life Insurance Company of America (UNUM). Plaintiff-respondent John E. Ward submitted his proof of claim to UNUM outside the time limit set…
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