Advisory Opinions

Whether the Mechanics' Lien Laws of the State of California and their related provisions are preempted by section 514 of title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) insofar as the California laws permit employee benefit plans covered by ERISA title I to foreclose on real property works of improvement to recover contributions owed those plans by contributing employers for work performed on the real property.

Whether a retiree working full-time as a maintenance refractory bricklayer for the Ford Motor Company’s Rouge River steel facility (Ford), which does not maintain the Bricklayers Pension Trust Fund-Metropolitan Area (the Plan), and who prior to his employment by Ford worked for subcontractors performing bricklaying work at Ford, accruing benefits under the Plan, has been working in the same “industry” as that term is used in the within the meaning of section 203(a)(3)(B)(ii) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 and the Department of Labor’s suspension of benefits regulation (29 CFR §2530.203-3(c)(2)).

Whether a proposed contribution or sale of certain real property to the Profit Sharing Trust for Employees of E-Z Serve, Inc. (the Plan) and simultaneous leaseback of the property to the E-Z Serve, Inc. (the Company) will be exempt from the prohibitions of sections 406 and 407 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) by the exemption contained in section 408(e) of ERISA for the acquisition, sale or lease of qualifying employer real property, and whether the land the Company proposes to contribute is qualifying employer real property under section 407(d)(4) of ERISA.

Whether the loss or destruction of records that must be retained under section 107 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) before the end of the six-year retention period prescribed by section 107 discharges persons required to retain the records from their statutory duty to do so.

Whether section 5(g) of Puerto Rico Act. No. 17 (approved April 17, 1931) as amended is preempted under section 514(a) of title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.

Whether the National Automatic Sprinkler Industry Welfare Fund (the Fund) is an employee welfare benefit plan within the meaning of section 3(1) the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) and/or a multiple employer welfare arrangement as described in section 3(40) of title I of ERISA.

Whether the Master Employers Trust, established in 1977 for the purpose of providing comprehensive and total dental health care to participating employers, their employees, and eligible dependents, is an employee welfare benefit plan within the meaning of section 3(1) of title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) and/or a multiple employer welfare arrangement under section 3(40) of ERISA, as amended by the Act of January 14, 1983 (Pub. L. 97-473).

Whether the proposed Transfer Employee Severance Pay Plan of the San Francisco Newspaper Agency (the Transfer Plan) is an employee pension benefit plan (pension plan) within the meaning of section 3(2)(A) of title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 or a severance pay plan which is not a pension plan under Labor Department regulation 29 C.F.R. §2510.3-2.

Whether the Euro-clear system, a central clearance system for internationally traded securities operated by the Brussels office of Morgan Guaranty, which accepts for deposit securities that are expected to be traded in international markets and allows the securities to be transferred, loaned, or pledged by bookkeeping entry without physical delivery of securities, is a "foreign clearing agency which acts as a securities depository" within the meaning of Department of Labor regulation 29 CFR §2550.404b-1(a)(2)(ii)(C).

Whether the Cooper-Jarrett, Inc., Retirement Plan for Non-Bargaining Employees violated the notification requirements of the Labor Department’s suspension of benefits plan regulation (29 CFR 2530.203-3), by suspending the retirement benefits for certain employees who continued working for their employer past their normal retirement age, which was prior to the effective date of the regulation, January 1, 1982), without making actuarial adjustments to their benefits or notifying the participants of these facts by the time these participants retired (whether before, on, or after the effective date of the regulation).