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Tess Gee Comments on Supreme Court Ruling on ERISA Pension Exemptions in The National Law Journal

Subtitle
"Hospitals' Pension Win at High Court Might be Short-Lived"

The National Law Journal

Tess Gee commented on the Supreme Court's unanimous ruling that reversed three federal appellate court rulings and found that a pension plan does not have to be established by a church to be exempt from ERISA as a "church plan." Despite this ruling, "[t]he dispute is far from over," Gee said. "The remaining issues entail individualized questions with respect to the hospitals and the plans' internal benefit committees." Some of those questions, she added, include: What's the structure of the internal plan committee and how does it operate? Who are its members? What functions does it perform? "Justice Kagan made quite clear the interpretation of these terms 'are not before us and nothing we say in this opinion expresses a view of how they should be resolved,'" Gee said.