STEVENS, J., dissenting prior holdings by this Court have given the supersession provision a broader reading. Thus, for example, in Shaw itself we held that the New York Human Rights Law, which prohibited employers from structuring their employee benefit plans in a manner that discriminated on the basis of pregnancy, was pre-empted even though ERISA did not contain any superseding regulatory provisions. 463 U. S., at 98. State laws that directly regulate ERISA plans, or that make it necessary for plan administrators to operate such plans differently, "relate to" such plans in the sense intended by Congress. In my opinion, a state law's mere reference to an ERISA plan is an insufficient reason for concluding that it is pre-empted-particularly when the state law itself is related almost solely to plans that Congress expressly excluded from the coverage of ERISA. It is anomalous to conclude that ERISA has superseded state regulation in an area that is expressly excluded from the coverage of ERISA. The statute at issue in this case does not regulate any ERISA plan or require any ERISA plan administrator to make any changes in the administration of such a plan. Although the statute may grant injured employees who receive health insurance a better compensation package than those who are not so insured, it does so only to prevent a converse windfall going to injured employees who receive high weekly wages and little or no health insurance coverage.5 Even if the District's statute did encourage an employer to pay higher wages instead of providing better fringe benefits, that would surely be no reason to infer a congressional intent to supersede state regulation of a category of compensation programs that it exempted from federal coverage. Moreover, by requiring an injured worker's compensation to reflect his entire pay package, the statute attempts to replace fully the lost earning power of every injured employee. Noth 5 One of the statute's stated goals was "to promote a fairer system of compensation." Preamble to District of Columbia's Workers' Compensation Equity Amendment Act of 1990, 37 D. C. Register 6890 (Nov. 1990). WASHINGTON BOARD OF TRADE STEVENS, J., dissenting ing in ERISA suggests an intent to supersede the State's efforts to enact fair and complete remedies for work-related injuries; it is difficult to imagine how a State could measure an injured worker's health benefits without referring to the specific health benefits that worker receives. Any State that wishes to effect the equitable goal of the District's statute will be forced by the Court's opinion to require a predetermined rate of health insurance coverage that bears no relation to the compensation package of each injured worker. The Court thereby requires workers' compensation laws to shed their most characteristic element: postinjury compensation based on each individual worker's preinjury level of compensation. Instead of mechanically repeating earlier dictionary definitions of the word "relate" as its only guide to decision in an important and difficult area of statutory construction, the Court should pause to consider, first, the wisdom of the basic rule disfavoring federal pre-emption of state laws, and second, the specific concerns identified in the legislative history as the basis for federal pre-emption. The most expansive statement of that purpose was quoted in our opinion in Shaw. As explained by Congressman Dent, the “crowning achievement" of the legislation was the "reservation to Federal authority [of] the sole power to regulate the field of employee benefit plans. With the preemption of the field, we round out the protection afforded participants by eliminating the threat of conflicting and inconsistent State and local regulation."" Id., at 99 (quoting 120 Cong. Rec. 29197 (1974)). The statute at issue in this case does not regulate even one inch of the pre-empted field, and poses no threat whatsoever of conflicting and inconsistent state regulation. By its holding today the Court enters uncharted territory. Where that holding will ultimately lead, I do not venture to predict. I am persuaded, however, that the Court has already taken a step that Congress neither intended nor foresaw. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent. Syllabus PUERTO RICO AQUEDUCT AND SEWER CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT No. 91-1010. Argued November 9, 1992-Decided January 12, 1993 Petitioner, an autonomous Puerto Rico government instrumentality, moved to dismiss the diversity action brought against it by respondent, a private firm, on the grounds that it was an "arm of the State," and that the Eleventh Amendment therefore prohibited the suit. After the District Court denied the motion, the Court of Appeals dismissed petitioner's appeal for want of jurisdiction, concluding that Circuit precedent barred both States and their agencies from taking an immediate appeal on a claim of Eleventh Amendment immunity. Held: States and state entities that claim to be "arms of the State" may take advantage of the collateral order doctrine of Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U. S. 541, to appeal a district court order denying a claim of Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit in federal court. Although 28 U. S. C. § 1291 requires that appeals be taken from "final decisions of the district courts," Cohen, supra, at 546, provides that a "small class" of judgments that are not complete and final will be immediately appealable. Once it is acknowledged that a State and its "arms" are, in effect, immune from federal-court suit under the Amendment, see, e. g., Welch v. Texas Dept. of Highways and Public Transportation, 483 U. S. 468, 480, it follows that the elements of the collateral order doctrine necessary to bring an order within Cohen's "small class," see Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U. S. 463, 468, are satisfied. First, denials of Eleventh Amendment immunity claims purport to be conclusive determinations that States and their entities have no right not to be sued in federal court. Second, a motion to dismiss on Eleventh Amendment grounds involves a claim to a fundamental constitutional protection whose resolution generally will have no bearing on the merits of the underlying action. Third, the value to the States of their constitutional immunity-like the benefits conferred by qualified immunity to individual officials, see Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U. S. 511, 526— is for the most part lost as litigation proceeds past motion practice, such that the denial order will be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment. Respondent's claim that the Amendment does not confer immunity from suit, but merely a defense to liability, misunderstands the role of the Amendment in our system of federalism and is rejected. v. METCALF & EDDY, INC. Syllabus Moreover, there is little basis for respondent's alternative argument that a distinction should be drawn between cases in which the determination of an Eleventh Amendment claim is bound up with factual complexities whose resolution requires trial and cases in which it is not. In any event, the determination of petitioner's Eleventh Amendment status does not appear to implicate any extraordinary factual difficulty and can be fully explored on remand. Pp. 142-147. 945 F. 2d 10, reversed and remanded. WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and BLACKMUN, O'CONNOR, SCALIA, KENNEDY, SOUTER, and THOMAS, JJ., joined. BLACKMUN, J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 147. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 148. Richard Taranto argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Perry M. Rosen, Paige E. Reffe, and Michael T. Brady. Peter W. Sipkins argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Michael J. Wahoske, Paul R. Dieseth, Carol A. Peterson, and Jay A. Garcia-Gregory.* *Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the State of Ohio et al. by Lee Fisher, Attorney General of Ohio, and Patrick A. Devine and Andrew I. Sutter, Assistant Attorneys General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective jurisdictions as follows: James H. Evans of Alabama, Grant Woods of Arizona, Winston Bryant of Arkansas, Daniel E. Lungren of California, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Robert A. Butterworth of Florida, Michael J. Bowers of Georgia, Elizabeth BarrettAnderson of Guam, Warren Price III of Hawaii, Larry Echo Hawk of Idaho, Roland W. Burris of Illinois, Linley E. Pearson of Indiana, Bonnie J. Campbell of Iowa, Robert T. Stephan of Kansas, Chris Gorman of Kentucky, Michael E. Carpenter of Maine, Scott Harshbarger of Massachusetts, Frank J. Kelley of Michigan, Mike Moore of Mississippi, William L. Webster of Missouri, Marc Racicot of Montana, Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada, Robert J. Del Tufo of New Jersey, Tom Udall of New Mexico, Robert Abrams of New York, Lacy H. Thornburg of North Carolina, Nicholas J. Spaeth of North Dakota, Robert C. Naraja of Northern Mariana Islands, Susan Loving of Oklahoma, Charles Crookham of Oregon, Ernest D. Preate, Jr., of Pennsylvania, Jorge E. Perez Diaz of Puerto Rico, James E. O'Neil of Rhode Island, T. Travis Medlock of South Carolina, Mark W. Barnett of South Dakota, Charles W. Burson of Tennessee, Dan Morales of Texas, Paul Van Dam of Utah, Jeffrey L. Amestoy of Vermont, Mary Opinion of the Court JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court. The question before the Court is whether a district court order denying a claim by a State or a state entity to Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit in federal court may be appealed under the collateral order doctrine of Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U. S. 541 (1949). We conclude that it may. I Petitioner, the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA), is “an autonomous government instrumentality" which functions to "provide to the inhabitants of Puerto Rico an adequate drinking water, sanitary sewage service and any other service or facility proper or incidental thereto." P. R. Laws Ann., Tit. 22, §§ 142, 144 (1987). In 1985, PRASA entered into a consent decree with the federal Environmental Protection Agency under which it agreed to upgrade many of its wastewater treatment plants to ensure compliance with the federal Clean Water Act. PRASA subsequently contracted with respondent, a private engineering firm incorporated in Delaware, to assist it with this task. In 1990, PRASA withheld payments on the contract in light of alleged overcharging by respondent. Respondent brought a diversity action in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, alleging breach of contract and damage to its business reputation. PRASA moved to dismiss on the grounds that it was an "arm of the State," and that the Eleventh Amendment therefore prohibited the suit.1 The District Court found that Sue Terry of Virginia, Kenneth Eikenberry of Washington, Mario J. Palumbo of West Virginia, James E. Doyle of Wisconsin, and Joseph B. Meyer of Wyoming; and for the Council of State Governments et al. by Richard Ruda, Michael G. Dzialo, and Clifton S. Elgarten. 1As the case comes to us, the law of the First Circuit-that the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is treated as a State for purposes of the Eleventh Amendment, see Ramirez v. Puerto Rico Fire Serv., 715 F. 2d 694, 697 (1983) is not challenged here, and we express no view on this mat |