MCKEE FOODS CORPORATION v. BFP INC. - Articles

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MCKEE FOODS CORPORATION v. BFP INC.

Posted by: Azya Thornton on Apr 7, 2026

Attorneys 1: ARGUED: Gabriel Krimm, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellant.

Attorneys 2: ARGUED: William H. Pickering, CHAMBLISS, BAHNER & STOPHEL, P.C., Chattanooga, Tennessee, for Appellee.

Attorneys 3: ON BRIEF: Gabriel Krimm, Michael N. Wennerlund, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellant.

Attorneys 4: ON BRIEF: William H. Pickering, Peter A. Newman, CHAMBLISS, BAHNER & STOPHEL, P.C., Chattanooga, Tennessee, Mark E. Schmidtke, OGLETREE, DEAKINS, NASH, SMOAK & STEWART, P.C., Valparaiso, Indiana, for Appellee.

Attorneys 5: ON BRIEF: Robert T. Smith, Timothy H. Gray, KATTEN MUCHIN ROSENMAN LLP, Washington, D.C., Cory L. Andrews, WASHINGTON LEGAL FOUNDATION, Washington, D.C., Deborah S. Davidson, MORGAN, LEWIS & BOCKIUS LLP, Chicago, Illinois, Michael Kenneally, MORGAN, LEWIS & BOCKIUS LLP, Washington, D.C., for Amici Curiae.

Judge(s): McKEAGUE, READLER, and DAVIS, Circuit Judges

Court Appealed: United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Chattanooga

DAVIS, Circuit Judge. Pharmacy benefit managers—referred to in the industry as PBMs—play a pivotal role in American healthcare. They oversee prescription-drug benefits for health plans, perform administrative services, help negotiate drug rebates, and set up pharmacy networks, working with health plans, drug manufacturers, and pharmacies along the way. But the rise of PBMs has been met with state-level regulation efforts. PBMs often own pharmacies to which they steer significant business, and in the process build a significant market share of the prescription-drug benefit field in a given geographic area. Some policymakers have raised concerns that such practices can lead to the closure of small, rural pharmacies. Citing this policy concern, Tennessee enacted laws to tamp down the PBM practice of steering patients to PBM-managed pharmacies. These laws ban interference with a patient’s choice of pharmacy and restrict the provision of incentives for patients to choose certain pharmacies over others. These restrictions sweep in self-funded health plans that are governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”), 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq., running headlong into that Act’s preemption provision and the Supreme Court’s decision in Rutledge v. PCMA, 592 U.S. 80 (2020). All this led to the present suit and the question we confront today: Does ERISA preempt Tennessee’s PBM-focused laws? The district court thought so, and we agree. Hence, for the reasons that follow, we AFFIRM.

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