BRIAN TED STEWART, District Judge
This matter is before the Court on Plaintiff John Karls' Motion to Remand and Defendant Texaco's Motion to Dismiss. The case, which involves a dispute about the amount and tender of pension payments Mr. Karls claims are owed to him, began in the Third District Court of Utah. It was removed to this court by Texaco based on its claim of federal subject matter jurisdiction under ERISA preemption. Mr. Karls filed an objection to that removal, followed by the present Motion to Remand. This motion is considered below, along with Texaco's Motion to Dismiss.
I. Plaintiff's Motion to Remand
The disposition of the Motion to Remand depends on two issues. First, whether Plaintiff's Complaint asserts causes of action that are preempted by ERISA; Second, whether the effective date of ERISA excludes Mr. Karls from its purview. Each of these issues is addressed below. A. Preemption
The Court does not consider arguments made in Mr. Karls' "Brief Supporting Plaintiffs Removal Objection," filed January 20, 2004. The memorandum was filed with the Court almost four months after the original motion, making it untimely under DUCivR 7-1(3). Further, Mr. Karls' Objection to Removal and his Motion to Remand are, for all intents and purposes, the same motion, which means that Mr. Karls has already had plentiful opportunities to brief his position on these issues.
Texaco removed the case to this court based on subject matter jurisdiction, claiming that Mr. Karls' common law claims were preempted by ERISA, and thus must be decided under that federal statute. If ERISA preempts the common law causes of action, subject matter jurisdiction would be proper in this court, because ERISA is a federal statute. ERISA explicitly preempts "any and all state laws insofar as they may now or hereafter relate to any employee benefit plan" covered by the statute. 29 U.S.C. § 1144(c)(1). An employee benefit plan is
any plan, fund, or program that was heretofore or is hereafter established or maintained by an employer or by an employee organization, or by both, to the extent that by its express terms or as a result of surrounding circumstances such plan, fund or program — (i) provides retirement income to employees, or (ii) results in a deferral of income by employees for periods extending to the termination of covered employment or beyond.
29 U.S.C. § 1002(2).
Drawing on the above language of the statute, the Court inquires whether Mr. Karls' state law claims relate to an employee benefit plan. A brief review of Mr. Karls' complaint reveals that there is very little in this lawsuit that does not relate claims involving an employee benefit plan. While the only claims Mr. Karls explicitly states are for fraud and breach of contract, it is clear that these claims are brought only in relation to the pension plan offered by his former employer, Texaco. Mr. Karls' first fraud claim states that in refusing to permit Mr. Karls to designate an early start date for payment of his pension, it committed fraud. However, Mr. Karls' assertion that Texaco was bound to allow him to designate such an early start date is based on his claim, stated in paragraph 4, that federal law permits such a designation. This paragraph is incorporated by reference into the first claim for relief, making it clear that the claim rests squarely on federal law. Regardless, the claim is for rights under a pension plan, which qualifies under ERISA as an "employee benefit plan."
The second and third claims for relief are similar. Claim number two states that Texaco's decision to send a monthly pension payment of $495.97 rather than $552.75 is fraudulent and a breach of contract. However, it is indisputable that the discrepancy between the actual and desired payouts is governed by the employee benefit plan. The third claim alleges that Texaco's failure to pay constituted fraud. Again, the payments in dispute are payments owed under an employee benefit plan. Despite the legal stylings of his Complaint, Mr. Karls cannot escape the fact that all of the remedies he seeks are based on duties allegedly owed him by Texaco under the pension plan. Under ERISA's preemption clause, no state law may govern the disposition of such claims. ERIS A preempts these claims, and therefore, this Court has subject-matter jurisdiction over Mr. Karls' Complaint.
B. Effective Date
Mr. Karls then offers the argument that because he began his employment with Texaco a full seven months before ERISA took effect, ERISA does not apply to this case. His legal basis for this assertion rests in the section (b) of ERISA's preemption clause, which states that ERISA shall not apply "with respect to any cause of action which arose, or any act or omission which occurred, before January 1, 1975." 29 U.S.C. § 1144(b)(1). Mr. Karls' reading of the statute is not based on any case law of which the Court is aware. On the contrary, many decisions hold that the language in the statue excludes from ERISA only those cases where the substantial facts of the dispute, or the behavior that is the direct impetus for the cause of action, happened before 1975. See, e.g., Estate of MacAnally v. Levin, 20 P.3d 1197 (Colo.Ct.App. 2001); and Lafferty v. Solar Turbines Int'l, 666 F.2d 408 (9th Cir. 1982).
In the present case, the events that occurred prior to ERISA's effective date, while significant, did not give rise to the causes of action at hand. Instead, the causes of action accrued when Texaco committed its alleged frauds and breaches of contract, which the Complaint places around 2003. The fact that Mr. Karls entered employment with Texaco seven months before ERISA took effect cannot rescue him from having his pension plan governed by that statute, especially when 13 years (roughly 95% of the time he spent with Texaco) of his employment, the disputes over pension start dates and payments, and the alleged frauds and breaches, all took place after January 1, 1975. Thus, ERISA applies to this dispute.
In summary, because Mr. Karls' Complaint focuses on payments and start dates that he claims are owed him under a pension plan from his former employment, and the pension plan fits the definition of "employee benefit plan" supplied by ERISA, that statute applies to this case, and all state law causes of action are preempted. Further, ERISA applies here because the seven months of the employment relationship between the parties that happened before ERISA's effective date did not contain any substantial acts, aside from the initial hiring, relevant to the current dispute, nor the events which gave rise to the causes of action. Accordingly, Mr. Karls' Motion to Remand is DENIED. II. Defendant's Motion to Dismiss
Having found that federal subject-matter jurisdiction is proper, the Court now addresses Defendant's Motion to Dismiss. To dispose of this motion, the Court need only address the question of exhaustion of administrative remedies.
The requirement that a plaintiff must exhaust administrative remedies before filing suit under ERISA is well established in the Tenth and other circuits. See Guerrero v. Lumberman's Mut. Cas Co., 174 F. Supp.2d 1218, 1221 (10th Cir. 2001) and Held v. Manufacturers Hanover Leasing Corp., 912 F.2d 1197, 1206 (10th Cir. 1990); See also Layes v. Mead Corp., 132 F.3d 1246, 1252 (8th Cir. 1998) and Weiner v. D.P.M. v. Kalis and Co., Inc., 108 F.3d 86, 89 (6th Cir. 1997).
Not only does Texaco aver that Mr. Karls never sought to avail himself of the administrative remedies provided by its pension plan, but Mr. Karls neither alleges in his Complaint that he did so, nor refutes the charge in his Opposition to the Motion to Dismiss. Given the importance of the rule and the solidity with which it is established among the various circuits, the Court cannot allow this case to carry on with such a glaring deficiency.
For the above reasons, Texaco's Motion to Dismiss is GRANTED, All other pending motions in this case are hereby mooted.
SO ORDERED.