In the 1986 case Alaska Airlines, Inc. v. Brock, Secretary of Labor et al., the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a dispute involving an amendment to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The amendment required airlines to provide their employees with certain information about retirement plans in order for those plans to qualify for tax benefits under ERISA. Several airlines challenged this provision as unconstitutional, arguing that it violated their Fifth Amendment due process rights by imposing retroactive liability without providing fair notice or opportunity for comment before implementation. The Supreme Court upheld most parts of the law but struck down its retroactivity provisions as violating due process principles because they did not serve a legitimate legislative purpose and were unduly harsh and oppressive in light of previous reliance interests held by employers who had established pension plans under prior laws. The court also found that Congress could have achieved its objectives through less drastic means than imposing significant financial burdens on employers retrospectively.

In the dissenting opinion for Alaska Airlines, Inc. v. Brock, Justice White argued that the Employee Protection Program (EPP) should not be invalidated just because one provision was found unconstitutional. He believed that Congress would have enacted EPP even without the "must-pass" provision and thus it could stand alone as a valid law. The majority's decision to invalidate EPP entirely due to one faulty clause contradicted previous court rulings which allowed laws with some invalid provisions to remain in force if they were severable from the rest of the statute. Furthermore, he criticized their reliance on legislative history rather than clear statutory language when determining whether or not Congress intended for EPP to exist without this specific clause.