The U.S. Supreme Court case Central Laborers' Pension Fund v. Thomas E. Heinz et al., 2003, revolved around the interpretation of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). The dispute arose when two retired construction workers, who had begun receiving pension benefits from their union's fund, started a new business in an unrelated field and were subsequently denied further pension payments by the fund under its "reemployment" rule. The retirees sued on grounds that ERISA prohibited such suspension of benefits for work outside their previous industry or trade. Lower courts ruled in favor of the retirees but this decision was reversed by an appeals court which held that ERISA did not limit suspensions to same-industry reemployment only. However, upon reaching the Supreme Court, it unanimously sided with the retirees stating that while ERISA does allow benefit plans to suspend payment if beneficiaries are reemployed after retirement; it limits those suspensions to cases where retiree’s post-retirement activities relate to his pre-retirement job within same industry or trade covered by plan rules.

In the dissenting opinion for Central Laborers' Pension Fund v. Thomas E. Heinz et al., Justice Scalia disagreed with the majority's interpretation of Section 1053(a) of ERISA, which prohibits pension plans from decreasing an employee’s accrued benefits through amendments to the plan. The majority held that this provision also prevents a plan from denying future accruals based on certain types of employment after retirement. However, Scalia argued that "accrued" should be interpreted in its ordinary sense as something already earned or accumulated, not something prospective or potential. Therefore, he believed that ERISA does not protect against conditions placed on future benefit accruals and only safeguards those benefits already earned by employees at any given time.