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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 11–1221
_________________
JACQUELINE HILLMAN, PETITIONER
v. JUDY
A. MARETTA
on writ of certiorari to the supreme court of
virginia
[June 3, 2013]
Justice Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the
Court.[
1]*
The Federal Employees’ Group Life
Insurance Act of 1954 (FEGLIA), 5 U. S. C. §8701
et seq., establishes a life insurance program for
federal employees. FEGLIA provides that an employee may designate a
beneficiary to receive the proceeds of his life insurance at the
time of his death. §8705(a). Separately, a Virginia statute
addresses the situation in which an employee’s marital status
has changed, but he did not update his beneficiary designation
before his death. Section 20–111.1(D) of the Virginia Code
renders a former spouse liable for insurance proceeds to whoever
would have received them under applicable law, usually a widow or
widower, but for the beneficiary designation. Va. Code Ann.
§20–111.1(D) (Lexis Supp. 2012). This case presents the
question whether the remedy created by §20–111.1(D) is
pre-empted by FEGLIA and its implementing regulations. We hold that
it is.
I
A
In 1954, Congress enacted FEGLIA to
“provide low-cost group life insurance to Federal
employees.” H. R. Rep. No. 2579, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 1
(1954). The program is administered by the federal Office of
Personnel Management (OPM). 5 U. S. C. §8716.
Pursuant to the authority granted to it by FEGLIA, OPM entered into
a life insurance contract with the Metropolitan Life Insurance
Company. See §8709; 5 CFR §870.102 (2013). Individual
employees enrolled in the Federal Employees’ Group Life
Insurance (FEGLI) Program receive coverage through this contract.
The program is of substantial size. In 2010, the total amount of
FEGLI insurance coverage in force was $824 billion. GAO, Federal
Employees’ Group Life Insurance: Retirement Benefit and
Retained Asset Account Disclosures Could Be Improved 1
(GAO–12–94, 2011).
FEGLIA provides that, upon an employee’s
death, life insurance benefits are paid in accordance with a
specified “order of precedence.” 5 U. S. C.
§8705(a). The proceeds accrue “[f]irst, to the
beneficiary or beneficiaries desig-nated by the employee in a
signed and witnessed writing received before death.”
Ibid. “[I]f there is no designated beneficiary,”
the benefits are paid “to the widow or widower of the
employee.”
Ibid. Absent a widow or widower, the
benefits accrue to “the child or children of the employee and
descendants of [the] deceased children”; “the parents
of the employee” or their survivors; the “executor or
administrator of the estate of the employee”; and last, to
“other next of kin.”
Ibid.
To be effective, the beneficiary designation and
any accompanying revisions to it must be in writing and duly filed
with the Government. See
ibid. (“[A] designation,
change, or cancellation of beneficiary in a will or other document
not so executed and filed has no force or effect”). An OPM
regulation provides that an employee may “change [a]
beneficiary at any time without the knowledge or consent of the
previous beneficiary,” and makes clear that “[t]his
right cannot be waived or restricted.” 5 CFR
§870.802(f). Employees are informed of these requirements
through materials that OPM disseminates in connection with the
program. See,
e.g., OPM, FEGLI Pro-gram Booklet 21–22
(rev. Aug. 2004) (setting forth the order of precedence and stating
that OPM “will pay benefits” “
[f]irst, to
the beneficiary [the employee] designate[s]”). The order of
precedence is also described on the form that employees use to
designate a beneficiary. See Designation of Beneficiary, FEGLI
Program, SF 2823 (rev. Mar. 2011) (Back of Part 2). And the
enrollment form advises employees to update their designations if
their “[i]ntentions [c]hange” as a result of, for
example, “marriage [or] divorce.”
Ibid.
In 1998, Congress amended FEGLIA to create a
limited exception to an employee’s right of designation. The
statute now provides that “[a]ny amount which would otherwise
be paid to a person determined under the order of precedence
. . . shall be paid (in whole or in part) by [OPM] to
another person if and to the extent expressly provided for in the
terms of any court decree of divorce, annulment, or legal
separation” or related settlement, but only in the event the
“decree, order, or agreement” is received by OPM or the
employing agency before the employee’s death. 5
U. S. C. §§8705(e)(1)–(2).
FEGLIA also includes an express pre-emption
provision. That provision states in relevant part that “[t]he
provisions of any contract under [FEGLIA] which relate to the
nature or extent of coverage or benefits (including payments with
respect to benefits) shall supersede and preempt any law of any
State . . . , which relates to group life insurance to
the extent that the law or regulation is inconsistent with the
contractual provisions.” §8709(d)(1).
This case turns on the interaction between these
provisions of FEGLIA and a Virginia statute. Section
20–111.1(A) (Section A) of the Virginia Code provides that a
divorce or annulment “revoke[s]” a “beneficiary
designation contained in a then existing written contract owned by
one party that provides for the payment of any death benefit to the
other party.” A “death benefit” includes
“payments under a life insurance contract.”
§20.111.1(B).
In the event that Section A is pre-empted by
federal law, §20–111.1(D) (Section D) of the Virginia
Code applies. Section D provides as follows:
“If [Va. Code Ann.
§20–111.1] is preempted by federal law with respect to
the payment of any death benefit, a former spouse who, not for
value, receives the payment of any death benefit that the former
spouse is not entitled to under [§20–111.1] is
personally liable for the amount of the payment to the person who
would have been entitled to it were [§20.111.1] not
preempted.”
In other words, where Section A is pre-empted,
Section D creates a cause of action rendering a former spouse
liable for the principal amount of the insurance proceeds to the
person who would have received them had Section A continued in
effect.
B
Warren Hillman (Warren) and respondent Judy
Maretta were married. In 1996, Warren named Maretta as the
beneficiary of his FEGLI policy. Warren and Maretta divorced in
1998 and, four years later, he married petitioner Jacqueline
Hillman. Warren died unexpectedly in 2008. Because Warren had never
changed the named beneficiary under his FEGLI policy, it continued
to iden-tify Maretta as the beneficiary at the time of his death
despite his divorce and subsequent remarriage to Hillman.
Hillman filed a claim for the proceeds of
Warren’s life insurance, but the FEGLI administrator informed
her that the proceeds would accrue to Maretta, because she had been
named as the beneficiary. Maretta filed a claim for the benefits
with OPM and collected the FEGLI proceeds in the amount of
$124,558.03. App. to Pet. for Cert. 37a.
Hillman then filed a lawsuit in Virginia Circuit
Court, arguing that Maretta was liable to her under Section D for
the proceeds of her deceased husband’s FEGLI policy. The
parties agreed that Section A, which directly reallo- cates the
benefits, is pre-empted by FEGLIA.
Id., at 36a. Maretta
contended that Section D is also pre-empted by federal law and that
she should keep the insurance proceeds. The Circuit Court rejected
Maretta’s argument and granted summary judgment to Hillman,
finding Maretta liable to Hillman under Section D for the proceeds
of Warren’s policy.
Id., at 58a.
The Virginia Supreme Court reversed and entered
judgment for Maretta. 283 Va. 34, 46, 722 S.E.2d 32, 38 (2012). The
court found that FEGLIA clearly instructed that the insurance
proceeds should be paid to a named beneficiary.
Id., at
44–46, 722 S. E. 2d, at 36–38. The court reasoned that
“Congress did not intend merely for the named beneficiary in
a FEGLI policy to receive the proceeds, only then to have them
subject to recovery by a third party under state law.”
Id., at 44, 722 S. E. 2d, at 37. It therefore concluded
that Section D is pre-empted by FEGLIA, because it “stand[s]
as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full
purposes and objectives of Congress.”
Id., at 45, 722
S. E. 2d, at 37 (internal quotation marks omitted).
We granted certiorari, 568 U. S. ___
(2013), to resolve a conflict among the state and federal courts
over whether FEGLIA pre-empts a rule of state law that
automatically assigns an interest in the proceeds of a FEGLI policy
to a person other than the named beneficiary or grants that person
a right to recover such proceeds.[
2] We now affirm.
II
Under the Supremacy Clause, Congress has the
power to pre-empt state law expressly. See
Brown v.
Hotel
Employees,
468 U.S.
491, 500–501 (1984). Although FEGLIA contains an express
pre-emption provision, see §8709(d)(1), the court below
considered only whether Section D is pre-empted under conflict
pre-emption principles. We limit our analysis here to that holding.
State law is pre-empted “to the extent of any conflict with a
federal statute.”
Crosby v.
National Foreign Trade
Council,
530 U.S.
363, 372 (2000) (citing
Hines v.
Davidowitz,
312 U.S.
52, 66–67 (1941)). Such a conflict occurs when compliance
with both federal and state regulations is impossible,
Florida
Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v.
Paul,
373 U.S.
132, 142–143 (1963), or when the state law “stands
as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full
purposes and objectives of Congress,”
Hines, 312
U. S., at 67. This case raises a question of purposes and
objectives pre-emption.
The regulation of domestic relations is
traditionally the domain of state law. See
In re Burrus,
136 U.S.
586, 593–594 (1890). There is therefore a
“presumption against pre-emption” of state laws
governing domestic relations,
Egelhoff v.
Egelhoff,
532 U.S.
141, 151 (2001), and “family and family-property law must
do ‘major damage’ to ‘clear and
substantial’ federal interests before the Supremacy Clause
will demand that state law will be overridden,”
Hisquierdo v.
Hisquierdo,
439
U.S. 572, 581 (1979). But family law is not entirely insulated
from conflict pre-emption principles, and so we have recognized
that state laws “governing the economic aspects of domestic
relations . . . must give way to clearly conflicting
federal enactments.”
Ridgway v.
Ridgway,
454 U.S.
46, 55 (1981).
A
To determine whether a state law conflicts
with Congress’ purposes and objectives, we must first
ascertain the nature of the federal interest.
Crosby, 530
U. S., at 372–373.
Hillman contends that Congress’ purpose in
enacting FEGLIA was to advance administrative convenience by
establishing a clear rule to dictate where the Government should
direct insurance proceeds. See Brief for Petitioner 25. There is
some force to Hillman’s argument that a significant
legislative interest in a large federal program like FEGLIA is to
enable its efficient administration. If Hillman is correct that
administrative convenience was Congress’ only purpose, then
there might be no conflict between Section D and FEGLIA: Section
D’s cause of action takes effect only after benefits have
been paid, and so would not necessarily impact the
Government’s distribution of insurance proceeds. Cf.
Hardy v.
Hardy, 963 N.E.2d 470, 477–478 (Ind.
2012).
For her part, Maretta insists that Congress had
a more substantial purpose in enacting FEGLIA: to ensure that a
duly named beneficiary will receive the insurance proceeds and be
able to make use of them. Brief for Respondent 21–22. If
Maretta is correct, then Section D would directly conflict with
that objective, because its cause of action would take the
insurance proceeds away from the named beneficiary and reallocate
them to someone else. We must therefore determine which
understanding of FEGLIA’s purpose is correct.
We do not write on a clean slate. In two
previous cases, we considered federal insurance statutes requiring
that insurance proceeds be paid to a named beneficiary and held
they pre-empted state laws that mandated a different distribution
of benefits. The statutes we addressed in these cases are similar
to FEGLIA. And the impediments to the federal interests in these
prior cases are analogous to the one created by Section D of the
Virginia statute. These precedents accordingly govern our analysis
of the relationship between Section D and FEGLIA in this case.
In
Wissner v.
Wissner,
338 U.S.
655 (1950), we considered whether the National Service Life
Insurance Act of 1940 (NSLIA), 54Stat. 1008, pre-empted a rule of
state marital property law. Congress had enacted NSLIA to
“affor[d] a uniform and comprehensive system of life
insurance for members and veterans of the armed forces of the
United States.”
Wissner, 338 U. S., at 658. A
California court granted the decedent’s widow, who was not
the named beneficiary, an interest in the insurance proceeds as
community property under state law.
Id., at 657.
We reversed, holding that NSLIA pre-empted the
widow’s state-law action to recover the proceeds.
Id.,
at 658. In pertinent part, NSLIA provided that the insured
“ ‘shall have the right to designate the
beneficiary or beneficiaries of the insurance [within a designated
class], . . . and shall . . . at all times have
the right to change the beneficiary or
beneficiaries.’ ”
Ibid. (quoting 38
U. S. C. §802(g) (1946 ed.)). We reasoned that
“Congress has spoken with force and clarity in directing that
the proceeds belong to the named beneficiary and no other.”
338 U. S., at 658. The California court’s decision could
not stand, we found, because it “substitute[d] the widow for
the mother, who was the beneficiary Congress directed shall receive
the insurance money.”
Id., at 659.
In
Ridgway, we considered a similar
question regarding the federal Servicemen’s Group Life
Insurance Act of 1965 (SGLIA), Pub. L. 89–214, 79Stat. 880,
another insurance scheme for members of the armed services. 454
U. S.
, at 50–53. A Maine court imposed a
constructive trust on insurance proceeds paid to a
servicemember’s widow, who was the named beneficiary, and
ordered they be paid to the decedent’s first wife as required
by the terms of a divorce decree.
Id., at 49–50.
In holding the constructive trust pre-empted, we
explained that the issue was “controlled by
Wissner.”
Id., at 55. As in
Wissner, the
applicable provisions of SGLIA made clear that “the insured
service member possesses the right freely to designate the
beneficiary and to alter that choice at any time by communicating
the decision in writing to the proper office.” 454
U. S., at 56 (citing
Wissner, 338 U. S., at 658).
We also noted that SGLIA estab- lished an “ ‘order
of precedence,’ ” which provided that the benefits
would be first paid to “ such ‘beneficiary or
bene-ficiaries as the member . . . may have designated by
[an appropriately filed] writing received prior to
death.’ ” 454 U. S., at 52 (quoting 38
U. S. C. §770(a) (1976 ed.)). Notwithstanding
“some small differences” between SGLIA and NSLIA, we
concluded that SGLIA’s “unqualified direc-tive to pay
the proceeds to the properly designated bene-ficiary clearly
suggest[ed] that no different result was intended by
Congress.” 454 U. S., at 57.
B
Our reasoning in
Wissner and
Ridgway applies with equal force here. The statutes we
considered in these earlier cases are strikingly similar to FEGLIA.
Like NSLIA and SGLIA, FEGLIA creates a scheme that gives highest
priority to an insured’s designated beneficiary. 5
U. S. C. §8705(a). Indeed, FEGLIA includes an
“order of precedence” that is nearly identical to the
one in SGLIA: Both require that the insurance proceeds be paid
first to the named beneficiary ahead of any other potential
recipient. Compare
ibid. with 38 U. S. C.
§770(a) (1976 ed.) (now §1970(a) (2006 ed.)).
FEGLIA’s implementing regulations further underscore that the
employee’s “right” of designation “cannot
be waived or restricted.” 5 CFR §843.205(e). In FEGLIA,
as in these other statutes, Congress “ ‘spok[e]
with force and clarity in directing that the proceeds
belong
to the named beneficiary and no other.’ ”
Ridgway, 454 U. S., at 55 (quoting
Wissner, 338
U. S., at 658; emphasis added). [
3]
Section D interferes with Congress’
scheme, because it directs that the proceeds actually
“belong” to someone other than the named beneficiary by
creating a cause of action for their recovery by a third party.
Ridgway, 454 U. S., at 55; see Va. Code Ann.
§20–111.1(D). It makes no difference whether state law
requires the transfer of the proceeds, as Section A does, or
creates a cause of action, like Section D, that enables another
person to receive the proceeds upon filing an action in state
court. In either case, state law displaces the beneficiary selected
by the insured in accordance with FEGLIA and places someone else in
her stead. As in
Wissner, applicable state law
“substitutes the widow” for the “beneficiary
Congress directed shall receive the insurance money,” 338
U. S., at 659, and thereby “frustrates the deliberate
purpose of Congress” to ensure that a federal
employee’s named beneficiary receives the proceeds.
Ibid.
One can imagine plausible reasons to favor a
different policy. Many employees perhaps neglect to update their
beneficiary designations after a change in marital status. As a
result, a legislature could have thought that a default rule
providing that insurance proceeds accrue to a widow or widower, and
not a named beneficiary, would be more likely to align with most
people’s intentions. Or, similarly, a legislature might have
reasonably believed that an employee’s will is more reliable
evidence of his intent than a beneficiary designation form executed
years earlier.
But that is not the judgment Congress
made.[
4] Rather than draw an
inference about an employee’s probable intent from a range of
sources, Congress established a clear and predictable procedure for
an employee to indicate who the intended beneficiary of his life
insurance shall be. Like the statutes at issue in
Ridgway
and
Wissner, FEGLIA evinces Congress’ decision to
accord federal employees an unfettered “freedom of
choice” in selecting the beneficiary of the insurance
proceeds and to ensure the proceeds would actually
“belong” to that beneficiary.
Ridgway, 454
U. S., at 56. An employee’s ability to name a
beneficiary acts as a “guarantee of the complete and full
performance of the contract to the exclusion of conflicting
claims.”
Wissner, 338 U. S., at 660. With that
promise comes the expectation that the insurance proceeds will be
paid to the named beneficiary and that the beneficiary can use
them.
There is further confirmation that Congress
intended the insurance proceeds be paid in accordance with
FEGLIA’s procedures. Section 8705(e)(1) of FEGLIA provides
that “[a]ny amount which would otherwise be paid
. . . under the order of precedence” shall be paid
to another person “if and to the extent expressly provided
for in the terms of any court decree of divorce, annulment, or
legal separation.” This exception, however, only applies if
the “decree, order, or agreement . . . is received,
before the date of the covered employee’s death, by the
employing agency.” §8705(e)(2). This provision allows
the proceeds to be paid to someone other than the named
beneficiary, but if and only if the requisite documentation is
filed with the Government, so that any departure from the
beneficiary designation is managed within, not outside, the federal
system.[
5]
We have explained that “[w]here Congress
explicitly enumerates certain exceptions to a general prohibition,
additional exceptions are not to be implied, in the absence of
evidence of a contrary legislative intent.”
Andrus v.
Glover Constr. Co.,
446 U.S.
608, 616–617 (1980). Section 8705(e) creates a limited
exception to the order of precedence. If States could make
alternative distributions outside the clear procedure Congress
established, that would transform this narrow exception into a
general license for state law to override FEGLIA. See
TRW
Inc. v.
Andrews,
534 U.S.
19, 28–29 (2001).[
6]
In short, where a beneficiary has been duly
named, the insurance proceeds she is owed under FEGLIA cannot be
allocated to another person by operation of state law. Section D
does exactly that. We therefore agree with the Virginia Supreme
Court that it is pre-empted.
III
We are not persuaded by Hillman’s
additional arguments in support of a different result.
Hillman contends that
Ridgway and
Wissner can be distinguished because, unlike the statutes we
considered in those cases, FEGLIA does not include an
“anti-attachment provision.” Brief for Petitioner
38–41. The anti-attachment provisions in NSLIA and SGLIA were
identical, and each broadly prohibited the “attachment, levy,
or seizure” of insurance proceeds by any legal process. 38
U. S. C. §454a (1946 ed.) (incorporated by reference
in §816); §770(g) (1976 ed.). In
Wissner and
Ridgway, we found that the relevant state laws violated
these provisions and that this further conflict supported our
conclusion that the state laws were pre-empted.
These discussions of the anti-attachment
provisions, however, were alternative grounds to support the
judgment in each case, and not necessary components of the
holdings. See
Ridgway, 454 U. S., at 60–61
(describing separately the anti-attachment provision and noting
that the state law “also” conflicted with it);
id., at 60 (noting that in
Wissner we found an
“anti-attachment provision . . . as an
independent ground for the result reached in that
case” (emphasis added)); see also
Rose v.
Rose,
481 U.S.
619, 631 (1987) (describing
Wissner’s treatment of
the anti-attachment provision as “clearly an alternative
holding”). The absence of an anti-attachment provision in
FEGLIA does not render
Ridgway’s and
Wissner’s primary holdings any less applicable
here.
Next, Hillman suggests that
Wissner and
Ridgway can be set aside because FEGLIA contains an express
pre-emption provision and that conflict pre-emption principles
ordinarily do not apply when that is so. Brief for Petitioner
45–47. As noted, the court below did not pass on the
parties’ express pre-emption arguments, and thus we
sim-ilarly address only conflict pre-emption. See
supra, at
7. And we need not consider whether Section D is expressly
pre-empted, because Hillman is incorrect to suggest that
FEGLIA’s express pre-emption provision renders conflict
pre-emption inapplicable. Rather, we have made clear that the
existence of a separate pre-emption provision
“ ‘does
not bar the ordinary working of
conflict pre-emption principles.’ ”
Sprietsma v.
Mercury Marine,
537 U.S.
51, 65 (2002) (internal quotation marks omitted); see
Arizona v.
United States, 567 U. S. ___, ___
(2012) (slip op., at 14).
Hillman further argues that
Ridgway is
not controlling because a provision of FEGLIA specifically
authorizes an employee to assign a FEGLI policy, whereas
SGLIA’s implementing regulations prohibit such an assignment.
See 5 U. S. C. §8706(f)(1) (2006 ed., Supp. V); 38
CFR §9.6 (2012). The premise of Hillman’s argument is
that FEGLIA’s assignment provision suggests that an employee
has a less substantial interest in who ultimately re- ceives the
proceeds. But an employee’s ability to assign a FEGLI policy
in fact highlights Congress’ intent to allow an employee wide
latitude to determine how the proceeds should be paid, whether that
is to a named beneficiary that he selects, or indirectly through
the assignment of the policy itself to someone else.
Finally, Hillman attempts to distinguish
Ridgway and
Wissner because Congress enacted the
statutes at issue in those cases with the goal of improving
military morale. Brief for Petitioner 47–51. Congress’
aim of increasing the morale of the armed services, however, was
not the basis of our pre-emption analysis in either case. See
Wissner, 338 U. S., at 658–659;
Ridgway,
454 U. S., at 53–56.
* * *
Section D is in direct conflict with FEGLIA
because it interferes with Congress’ objective that insurance
proceeds belong to the named beneficiary. Accordingly, we hold that
Section D is pre-empted by federal law. The judgment of the
Virginia Supreme Court is affirmed.
It is so ordered.