The ERISA Industry Committee filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota together with the Cigna Group, Cigna's Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company affiliate, and the National Labor Alliance of Health Care Coalitions, a group for union health plans.

The defendants are the Minnesota Department of Commerce and Grace Arnold, Minnesota's commerce commissioner.

Related: 10 key 2024 health benefits court cases

Congress created ERISA preemption in an effort to reduce the cost of offering multistate employee benefit plans by giving the U.S. Labor Department, rather than individual states, jurisdiction over the plans.

Health care providers have often argued over the years that ERISA preemption keeps states from providing adequate protection for the providers and the patients.

Employers, employer groups, and benefit providers and administrators contend that successful state efforts to get around ERISA preemption would make health benefits more expensive and difficult to offer.

Minnesota officials have been trying to enforce the Minnesota Pharmacy Benefit Manager Licensure and Regulation Act of 2019, a law that makes it difficult for an employer to exclude many pharmacies from its pharmacy network, either to control costs or to address concerns about quality, according to the ERISA Industry Committee and the other plaintiffs.

The Minnesota Department of Commerce "has asserted the power to apply the [PBM] act not only to benefit plans offered and insurance policies sold within the state, but also to plans and policies entirely outside of Minnesota and with no meaningful connection to the state," the plaintiffs say

That kind of regulation is forbidden by several clauses of the U.S. United States Constitution, the plaintiffs contend.

Representatives for the Minnesota Department of Commerce were not immediately available to comment on the suit.