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City's Equal Benefits Law is preempted
February 15, 2006 by Ross Runkel at LawMemo
Council of City of New York v. Bloomberg (New York 02/14/2006) holds (by a 4-3 vote) that New York City's "Equal Benefits Law" is preempted by a state statute and by ERISA.
New York City's law says no city agency can enter a contract for more than $100,000 with a company that fails to provide its employees' domestic partners with benefits equal to those provided to spouses. A "domestic partner" is anyone registered under either the Equal Benefits Law or NYC Administrative Code Section 3-240(a) (Local Civil Rights Restoration Act of 2005).
New York's highest court has ruled the Equal Benefits Law is preempted by a state statute on public works contracts. General Municipal Law Section 103 says "all contracts for public work involving an expenditure of more than twenty thousand dollars and all purchase contracts involving an expenditure of more than ten thousand dollars, shall be awarded . . . to the lowest responsible bidder . . . ."
The court says "the Equal Benefits Law violates this requirement by excluding from public contracting any 'responsible bidder' that does not provide equal benefits to domestic partners and spouses."
The court also ruled that the law is preempted by ERISA - the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act because it "seemingly seeks to ... prescribe the terms of [ERISA-regulated] benefit plans."
A DISSENT by three judges argued that the court should not have reached the merits of the case due to the procedural posture of the case (an Article 78 proceeding) which does not allow for a full examination of all the facts. The dissent would have sent the case back to allow for declaratory judgment action to proceed in the normal course.
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