The Keller Rohrback ERISA team, along with co-counsel at Stris & Maher and the Seattle City Attorney, completed its successful defense of a landmark Seattle ordinance when the Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari brought by a nationwide employer association. The ordinance requires large hotels to spend a certain amount for their employees’ health care or pay the employees additional compensation so as to enable them to afford such care. The employer group claimed that the law was preempted by ERISA, the federal law covering employer-provided benefits, in ERISA Indus. Comm. v. City of Seattle, No. 181188 (W.D. Wash.). Keller Rohrback had originally helped to draft the ordinance.  

Prior to the Supreme Court’s order, the employer association’s case had been dismissed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. and that decision was then affirmed by the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.  Congratulations to the Keller Rohrback ERISA team—Jeff Lewis, Erin Riley, and Matt Gerend—on this victory at the highest level!