United States Ninth Circuit

In a challenge to municipally mandated employer health care spending requirements, summary judgment for plaintiff is reversed and the case remanded with instruction to enter summary judgment for defendant where the spending requirements are not preempted by ERISA because: 1) the spending requirements do not create an ERISA "plan" as defined by 29 U.S.C. section 1002(1); and 2) the spending requirements do not have an impermissible connection with employers' ERISA plans, or make impermissible reference to such plans.

Appellate Information

• Argued 04/17/2008
• Decided 09/30/2008
• Published 09/30/2008

Judges

• WILLIAM A. FLETCHER, Circuit Judge:, Before: ALFRED T. GOODWIN, STEPHEN REINHARDT, and W. FLETCHER, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Stephen P. Berzon, Scott A. Kronland and Stacey M. Leyton, Altshuler Berzon, Vince Chhabria, Office of the City Attorney, San Francisco, CA, Jeffrey Lewis, Lewis, Feinberg, Lee, Renaker & Jackson, P.C., Oakland, CA, for appellants., Leslie Robert Stellman, Hodes, Pessin & Katz, Towson, MD, for amicus National Federation of Independent Business Legal Foundation., Jon W. Breyfogle, Groom Law Group, Washington, D.C., for amicus American Benefits Council., James P. Baker, Jones Day, San Francisco, CA, for amicus Employers Group., Jeffrey A. Berman, Sidley Austin, Los Angeles, CA, for amicus California Chamber of Commerce., Thomas L. Cubbage, Covington & Burling, Washington, D.C., for amici ERISA Industry Committee and National Business Group of California., Edward D. Sieger, U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, D.C., for amicus Secretary of Labor., Thomas M. Christina, Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, Greenville, SC, for amici International Franchise Association, National Association of Manufacturers, and Society for Human Resource Management, Michael D. Peterson, Washington, D.C., for amicus HP Policy Association., Eugene Scalia, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, Washington D.C., for amici Retail Industry Leaders Association and Chamber of Commerce of the United States., Barbara Jones, Jay E. Sushelsky, Mary Ellen Signorille, AARP Foundation Litigation, Pasadena, CA, for Amicus AARP., Edmund G. Brown Jr., Attorney General, Douglas M. Press, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Gordon Burns, Deputy Solicitor General, Karin S. Schwartz, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Beverley R. Meyers, Sarah E. Kurtz, Hadara R. Stanton, Benjamin J. Riley, Deputy Attorneys General, for Amicus Curiae State of California.


• For Appellees:
  
• Curtis A. Cole and Joshua Traver, Cole Pedroza, LLP, Pasadena, CA, Richard C. Rybicki, Dickenson, Peatman, & Fogarty, Napa, CA, Patrick Sutton, Dickenson, Peatman & Fogarty, Santa Rosa, CA, for appellee.