Here are the materials in Coppe v. Sac & Fox Casino Healthcare Plan (D. Kan.):
An excerpt:
The statutory language of ERISA in 29 U.S.C. § 1002(32) demonstrates that Congress specifically intended for Indian tribes to maintain sovereign immunity for some employee benefit plans and to abrogate it for others. The language makes it clear that the exemption from the requirements of ERISA applies if all the employees in the plan established by an Indian tribe are “in the performance of essential governmental functions but not in the performance of commercial activities [whether or not an essential government function].”
Congress’s 2006 amendments to ERISA constitute an unequivocal waiver of sovereign immunity for tribal employee plans that perform commercialfunctions. Even before those amendments, circuit courts found ERISA applicable to Indian tribes whose employees performed non-governmental functions. Lumber Indus. Pension Fund v. Warm Springs Forest Prods. Indus., 939 F.2d 683 (9th Cir. 1991); Smart, 868 F.2d at 929.
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