Buechler

MEMORANDUM **

The issue in this case is whether the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 1001—1461 (1994), preempts state community property law when state law requires an employee welfare plan to pay benefits to someone other than the designated beneficiary. We conclude that it does. Appellant Buechler’s claim to benefits from her deceased former husband’s life insurance policy is thus preempted by ERISA, and we affirm.

The parties do not dispute that the life insurance policy was part of an employee welfare plan governed by ERISA. The issue is whether ERISA preempts Buechler’s claim.

In Emard v. Hughes Aircraft Co., 1 this court held that ERISA preemption does not bar California community property law from requiring distribution of ERISA life insurance proceeds to someone other than the designated beneficiary. 2 However, in the recent case of Egelhoff v. Egelhoff, 3 the Supreme Court implicitly overruled Emard.

In Egelhoff, a Washington statute automatically revoked a former spouse’s designation as a beneficiary if the marriage was subsequently dissolved or invalidated. 4 In effect, the statute required that “[t]he administrators [of employee welfare…