The United States Supreme Court has denied a request for review of a recent decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that upheld the legality of California’s automatic retirement savings program. The case is Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association et al. v. California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Program et al., Case Number 21-558.

California created CalSavers in 2012 and required California employers with five or more workers to offer retirement plans to their employees or join CalSavers by 2022. When employers join CalSavers, their employees get a portion of their salary automatically invested in an IRA, unless they opt out of the program.

Other states have adopted programs similar to CalSavers, including Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Oregon.

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association filed suit against the state of California in 2018, challenging the validity of the California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Program, or CalSavers, a self-IRA program for private sector workers in the state. In his lawsuit, Howard Jarvis argued that CalSavers, which created IRAs for nearly 90,000 workers, was preempted by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).

A federal court in California dismissed the case in 2020, but Howard Jarvis appealed the decision. The Ninth Circuit agreed with the federal court to uphold the lawsuit’s dismissal, stating that since CalSavers was not a “benefits plan” established or maintained by participants’ employers, ERISA did not ahead of CalSavers.

Howard Jarvis then filed a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court in October 2021. The High Court requested a responding brief from CalSavers and State Treasurer Fiona Ma, which they filed in January 2022. They argued that the Supreme Court should dismiss Howard Jarvis’ challenge. on the program since the Ninth Circuit correctly ruled that ERISA did not anticipate it.