The state Supreme Court has granted allocatur to determine whether claims alleging the breach of an oral agreement involving pension benefits is pre-empted by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
The court will hear arguments as to whether a breach of contract claim for lost pension benefits brought by a company’s employees has only an “incidental” relationship to the company’s ERISA pension plan and whether this new standard for ERISA pre-emption directly conflicts with prior precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court and 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
