TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge:
In this federal diversity case we must decide whether federal law, under either the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 1001-1381 (1976), or § 301 or § 302 of the TaftHartley Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 185 and 186 [968]*968(1976), preempts a merchant seaman’s state-law claim that he is entitled to pension benefits. The district court determined that ERISA preempted the claim and accordingly dismissed the case. We think the district court misconstrued ERISA’s preemption provision in making that determination and therefore reverse and remand the case for further proceedings.
I
The Facts
In 1964, John Woodfork, a member of the Seafarers’ International Union and a participant in its pension plan, The Pacific District Pension' Fund (the Pension Plan), was involved in an altercation aboard ship. Disciplinary proceedings were initiated against Woodfork and resulted in reduction of his union seniority status to zero. With zero seniority, Woodfork was unable to secure work with employers signatory to the Pension Plan. Since credit toward a pension was based on work for such employers, Woodfork’s participation in the Pension Plan effectively ended with his loss of seniority.
At the time of his seniority reduction, Woodfork had accumulated 16 years of credit toward his pension. Had Woodfork been 65 years of age and “retired” from marine employment, this amount of pension credit would have entitled him to a “reduced pension” under the terms of the Pension Plan then in effect. Woodfork, however, was only 57 years of age and thus did not qualify for reduced pension benefits in 1964.
The minimum age for pension eligibility was lowered to age 62 in 1965; in 1969, after Woodfork attained that age, he went to his union office to inquire about applying for a pension. Representatives of the union advised him that he was ineligible for pension benefits because he had not accumulated 90 days of pension credit “during the 24-month period immediately preceding his application for his pension,” as required by the terms of the Pension Plan. Record, Exhibits Volume, D-l, at 10. Apparently relying on this advice, Woodfork neither submitted a pension application nor initiated any other sort of direct contact with the Pension Plan office.
In 1974, after ERISA was enacted, Wood-fork hired an attorney to investigate his pension eligibility. The attorney sent a letter to the union on December 27, 1974, requesting various information he felt was needed to determine “what rights, if any, Mr. Woodfork has to obtain a pension, or the alternative [sic], to obtain a refund of whatever monies were deposited in the pension fund by either himself [sic] or any of his employers.” Record, Exhibits Volume, D-23. The attorney sent a second letter, dated February 6,1975, which stated that it should be treated as an application for pension benefits. Id. at D-24. The Pension Plan began processing the February letter as an application, but before it reached a final decision, Woodfork filed this lawsuit alleging entitlement to pension benefits. Shortly thereafter, the Pension Plan notified Woodfork that it had found him ineligible for benefits.
II
The Complaint and the Proceedings in the District Court
Woodfork’s complaint alleged that the Pension Plan refused to pay him benefits to which he was entitled; jurisdiction was premised on the civil enforcement provision of ERISA, 29 U.S.C. § 1132 (1976), and on sections 301 and 302 of the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 185 and 186 (1976). The action was filed in the Eastern District of Louisiana, where Woodfork lived.
The officers of the Pension Plan were located in San Francisco, and the plan administrator and the plan trustees also resided in California.1 Defendants moved under [969]*969the venue provisions of ERISA and the Taft-Hartley Act to transfer venue to the Northern District of California.2 To avoid the possibility that his suit would have to be prosecuted in California,3 Woodfork amended his complaint to substitute a state claim of pension entitlement for the federal claims. In the amended complaint, jurisdiction was premised on diversity. Since in a diversity case venue lies in any district in which the plaintiff resides, the defendants were compelled to withdraw their challenge to venue, and the case proceeded to trial.
A pretrial stipulation set forth several contested legal issues, which, for purposes of this appeal, may be reduced to the following question: whether the amended complaint, relying exclusively on California law, stated a claim on which relief could be granted. According to defendants, the complaint did not state such a claim because: (1) state law was preempted by ERI-SA, and by sections 301 and 302 of the Taft-Hartley Act; and (2) assuming that state law was not preempted, Woodfork had no right under California law to receive benefits in contravention of the specific and unambiguous terms of the pension plan.
The case came to trial before the court and, after post-trial briefing, the district court dismissed the cause. The reason for the dismissal was explained as follows:
[T]he 1974 Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) preempted the field and superseded state law. The 1974 Act is applicable to all causes of actions [sic] arising after its effective date, January 1, 1975. Since application for benefits and the denial of them occurred subsequent to the effective date of the statute, and since Plaintiff alleged only a state law claim and state law was inapplicable, the claim [is] dismissed.
Record, Vol. I at 124 (citations omitted).
Plaintiff moved for reconsideration, or alternatively, to amend the complaint to restore the ERISA and Taft-Hartley claims. The court denied the motion and plaintiff brought this appeal.
Woodfork’s basis for this appeal is that ERISA did not supersede his state law claim because that claim was covered by two statutory exceptions to ERISA’s preemption provision. If we find, however, that ERISA does preempt the state law claim, Woodfork asks that we instruct the district court to grant his motion to amend the complaint to restore his federal claims.
In asking us to affirm, defendants urge that the district court correctly determined that ERISA preempted the state law claim. Alternatively, defendants contend that the district court’s decision should be sustained because (1) sections 301 and 302 of the Taft-Hartley Act preempt the state law claim; and (2) even if applicable, no theory of California law supports Woodfork’s position that he is entitled to a pension.
Ill
ERISA Preemption
The Employee Retirement Income Security Act was enacted on September 2, 1974; the effective date of the provisions of the Act relevant to this appeal is January 1, 1975. One of the purposes of ERISA is “to protect ... the interests of participants in employee benefit plans ... by establishing standards of conduct, responsibility, and obligation for fiduciaries of employee benefit plans, and by providing for appropriate remedies . .. and ready access to the Federal courts.” 29 U.S.C. § 1001(b) (1976). [970]*970ERISA’s drafters felt that this purpose would best be served by creating a comprehensive federal scheme of pension plan regulation that preempted all state regulation. The need for preemption was explained by Senator Harrison A. Williams, one of the principal authors of ERISA, as follows:
It should be stressed that with the narrow exceptions specified in the bill, the substantive and enforcement provisions . . . are intended to preempt the field for Federal regulations, thus eliminating the threat of conflicting or inconsistent State and local regulation of employee benefit plans.
[1974] U.S.Code Cong. & Adm.News 4639, 5188.
The substantive provision of ERISA accomplishing preemption of state law is 29 U.S.C. § 1144 (1976), which reads as follows:
(a) Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, the provisions of this sub-chapter .. . shall supersede any and all State laws insofar as they may now or hereafter relate to any employee benefit plan .... This section shall take effect on January 1, 1975.
(b) (1) This section shall not apply with respect to any cause of action which arose, or any act or omission which occurred, before January 1, 1975.
Under section 1144, then, the question whether ERISA preempts California common law turns on whether subsection (b)(1) applies to Woodfork’s claim. Subsection (b)(1) removes from the supercession requirement (a) causes of action which arose before January 1,1975 (the “cause-of-action exception”) and (b) acts or omissions which occurred before January 1, 1975 (the “act- or-omission exception”). Woodfork presents a two-fold argument that ERISA has no application in his case: (1) his cause of action arose before January 1,1975; and, alternatively, (2) that his cause of action is based in part on an act or omission that occurred prior to that date.
We agree with Woodfork to this extent: we think there is an unresolved question of fact, and of law, whether his cause of action accrued before January 1, 1975, and we therefore remand to the district court to determine when the cause of action arose. We disagree, however, with Woodfork’s second contention; we hold instead that a cause of action arising after January 1, 1975, is an ERISA claim even though it may be founded in part on earlier occurrences.
A.
We first consider why the “act-or-omission” exception does not preclude ERISA preemption of a claim that arises after the January 1 effective date. As we read his brief, Woodfork argues that the Pension Plan’s adoption, before 1975, of the pension eligibility standards he challenges, was an act or omission within the statutory meaning of those terms. An only slightly different way of characterizing pre-ERISA events is to say that when Woodfork attained age 62 in 1969, the challenged eligibility provisions acted automatically to deny him his pension. See Winer v. Edison Brothers Stores Pension Plan, 593 F.2d 307, 312 (8th Cir. 1979). Under either characterization, Woodfork would argue that his cause of action is based substantially on an act or omission occurring before January 1, 1975, and that ERISA’s preemption provisions do not apply. The Pension Plan, however, contends that the only act or omission material to Woodfork’s claim is its denial of the pension, which occurred after January 1, 1975, and that neither exception of ERI-SA’s preemption provision applies. Thus, the parties to this appeal invite us to decide this case, in part, by defining precisely the term “act or omission.”
Congress did not, either by express statutory definition or by ERISA’s legislative history, provide guidance on the meaning of the term “act or omission.” See Bacon v. Wong, 445 F.Supp. 1189, 1192 (N.D.Cal.1978). We must therefore divine specific statutory meaning from general statements of Congressional intent and the rules of statutory construction.
A basic principle of statutory construction is that “a statute should not be [971]*971construed- in such a way as to render certain provisions superfluous or insignificant.” Zeigler Coal Co. v. Kleppe, 536 F.2d 398, 406 (D.C.Cir.1976). See also United States v. Wong Kim Bo, 472 F.2d 720, 722 (5th Cir. 1972). If we are to assume, as Woodfork contends we should, that ERISA does not preempt a cause of action if its factual basis includes acts or omissions occurring before 1975, the cause-of-action exception would be superfluous. This is because any cause of action arising before 1975, by definition, must be based on acts or omissions occurring before 1975. Thus, the cause-of-action exception would have independent significance only if it applies in contexts to which the act-or-omission exception is inapplicable. We think it is possible to construe the statute in a way that achieves this result.
A cause of action, in common legal parlance, is a state of facts which would entitle a person to sustain an action and to seek a judicial remedy on his behalf. See Fraticelli v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance Co., 375 F.2d 186, 188 n.6 (1st Cir. 1967); Swankowski v. Diethelm, 98 Ohio App. 271, 129 N.E.2d 182, 184 (Ohio 1953). ERISA preempts state law, however, whether or not it provides the legal basis for a cause of action. For example, ERI-SA’s preemption section covers pension-related state administrative proceedings and criminal prosecutions, which certainly cannot be characterized as causes of action. See 29 U.S.C. § 1144(c)(1) (1976); Azzaro v. Harnett, 414 F.Supp. 473 (S.D.N.Y.1976) (preemption of state administrative ageney’s regulation of pension disclosure), aff’d, 553 F.2d 93 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 824, 98 S.Ct. 71, 54 L.Ed.2d 82 (1977).4 In such contexts, the cause-of-action exception is simply inapposite and only the act-or-omission exception is applicable. We think a reasonable construction of the statute is to confine use of the latter exception to acts or omissions that set in motion legal proceedings other than causes of action.
This interpretation of the statute is consistent with meeting a basic legislative goal of ERISA: allowing a participant to bring a civil action in federal court “to recover benefits due to him under the terms of his plan, to enforce his rights under the terms of the plan, or to clarify his rights to future benefits under the terms of the plan.... ” 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(1)(B) (1976). It is reasonable to assume that Congress desired to provide this federal court access as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, Congress did not choose to open the federal forum to non-preempted state claims. Martin v. Bankers Trust Co., 565 F.2d 1276, 1278 (4th Cir. 1977). Rather, actions brought in the federal forum were to be those “regarded as arising under the laws of the United States .. . . ” [1974] U.S.Code Cong. & Adm.News 5188 (Comment of Senator Harrison Williams).
A state claim not preempted by ER-ISA obviously does not arise under federal law and the federal forum is thus, absent diversity, closed to it. See Martin v. Bankers Trust Co., supra. Thus, our acceptance of Woodfork’s contention that causes [972]*972of action are excepted from preemption whenever they involve any pre-1975 acts or omissions could deny many individuals the right to sue in federal court.5 This would conflict with the goal of providing access to a federal forum for pension plan participants. It would also conflict with Senator Williams’ admonition that the preemption exceptions are to be construed narrowly. See supra, 642 F.2d at 970.
Two further points warrant discussion. First, we think we must consider why, if Congress wished to accord participants access to a federal forum as soon as possible, it denied such access to those individuals whose causes of action arose prior to January 1, 1975. We think the Fourth Circuit answered this question in Martin v. Banker’s Trust Co.:
In his brief counsel for [the participant] concedes that he is not charging the defendants with liability for any new duty imposed upon them by ERISA and which did not exist prior to [ERISA], but argues that ERISA grants him a federal forum to determine his rights to benefits under the plan [where his cause of action arose before January 1, 1975]. We reject this argument for we agree with the defendants that to place such a construction upon the statute would raise a serious constitutional question.
567 F.2d at 1279.
Without deciding whether Congress could have constitutionally provided a federal forum for causes of action arising before ER-ISA’s enactment, we agree with the Fourth Circuit that Congress’s concern in 1974 over the possible unconstitutionality motivated it to deny a federal forum to litigants with pre-existing causes of action.6
The second point requiring discussion concerns Woodfork’s remedies under ERISA. According to Woodfork, ERISA provides him no pension rights, and, thus, if it preempts his state law claim, he is left without a remedy. Since ERISA is a remedial statute that was enacted to fill a void created by ineffective state protection of a worker’s pension rights, it is inconceivable that Congress intended the statute to deprive workers of their pensions by taking away existing state rights and offering no federal rights in return. ERISA, therefore, must be interpreted to preserve his state law claim.
Woodfork’s view might be persuasive if ERISA in fact failed to replace his preempted state remedy with a federal remedy. In our view, however, ERISA does provide Woodfork with a federal remedy. The reason Woodfork believes it does not is that he looks only to its substantive provisions. The substantive provision dealing with vesting of benefits would make illegal a pension plan’s denial of benefits because of a break-in-service, see 29 U.S.C. § 1053 (1976), but that provision does not apply to service breaks, like Woodfork’s, that occurred before ERISA’s effective date, see 29 U.S.C. § 1053(b)(1)(F) (1976). Since Woodfork’s break began in 1964, this substantive provision provides him no protection.7
This does not leave Woodfork without federal rights, however. As we mentioned earlier, 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(1)(B) (1976) provides that a participant in a pension plan can bring a civil action to recover benefits under the terms of his plan. The legislative history of ERISA indicates that [973]*973this section was intended to create a federal common law concerning pension rights, which would augment the rights created by ERISA’s substantive provisions.
[Participants and beneficiaries may bring suit to recover benefits denied contrary to the terms of their plan, and where such claims by participants or beneficiaries do not involve application of the substantive requirements of this legislation, they may be brought in either State or Federal courts of competent jurisdiction. It is intended that such actions will be regarded as arising under the laws of the United States, in similar fashion to those brought under section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act.
[1974] U.S.Code Cong. & Adm.News 5188 (Comment of Senator Harrison Williams) (emphasis supplied). We think in interpreting the terms of a pension plan in a case such as Woodfork’s, this federal common law allows a court to interpret a pension plan’s terms in light of a worker’s pre-ERISA state law rights. Thus, if Woodfork is correct that under California law the Pension Plan would have been required to pay him benefits notwithstanding plan provisions to the contrary, he may, in our view, raise these rights as part of a judicially created body of federal law governing pension entitlement.8 Having concluded that the “act or omission” exception does not preclude ERISA preemption of Woodfork’s claim, we turn to the question whether his cause of action arose after January 1, 1975.
B.
Woodfork contends, as he must, that his cause of action arose before January 1, 1975. The district court, however, found that Woodfork’s claim did not become actionable until after his application was denied. Since the denial occurred in March of 1975, the district court dismissed the suit. In reaching its decision, however, the district court did not consider whether any event occurring prior to 1975 might have triggered Woodfork’s right to sue the Pension Plan.
Whether a cause of action accrued before January 1, 1975, is a question of state law. In this case it is agreed that California law is controlling; thus the question is whether Woodfork could have brought suit in a California court prior to his submission of a formal application for [974]*974benefits to the Pension Plan on February 6, 1975. If so, Woodfork’s cause of action would have accrued before ERISA’s preemptive date. This question was not briefed by either party at the district court level.
We think Woodfork might be able to make plausible arguments that his claim against the Pension Plan ripened earlier than the district court held. One argument, suggested on this appeal, is based on facts dating back to 1968, when union officials informed Woodfork that he was ineligible for pension benefits. Woodfork contends that this was a denial of benefits, but the Pension Plan answers that it could not have been, since union officials had no authority to act for the Plan. The issue of what authority the union officials may have had, however, was not litigated below.
Ordinarily, we would expect a plaintiff in Woodfork’s position to have litigated the question fully in the trial court. It is unclear, however, from the manner in which the issues were framed in the district court, whether Woodfork was put on notice as to the critical importance of when his cause of action accrued and, if so, whether such notice was given early enough in the proceedings to enable him to have a fair opportunity to present evidence and advance his arguments. We therefore remand the case to the district court to allow Woodfork to litigate whether his state law claim arose before ERISA’s January 1,1975 preemption date.
IV
Taft-Hartley Preemption
The Pension Plan contends that Wood-fork’s state claim is preempted by sections 301 and 302 of the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 185 and 186 (1976). Thus, even if ERISA does not preempt the state claim the diversity action must, still, in the Pension Plan’s view, be dismissed. We first address the question of section 302 preemption.
Section 302(c)(5) of the Taft-Hartley Act, which applies to pension plans negotiated by a union for its members, creates requirements which the plan must satisfy before the employer may legally fund it. Among the requirements is that the trust be administered for the sole and exclusive benefit of the employer’s employees. At least one circuit has interpreted these words to create a private cause of action, governed by federal substantive law, for a beneficiary to sue his pension trust for benefits. Alvares v. Erickson, 514 F.2d 156, 164-167 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 874, 96 S.Ct. 143, 46 L.Ed.2d 106 (1975). See also Goetz, Developing Federal Labor Law of Welfare and Pension Plans, 55 Cornell L.Rev. 911, 925-931 (1970). The Ninth Circuit has indicated its willingness in such cases to consider whether eligibility requirements, similar to those Woodfork challenges here, are arbitrary, capricious and, thus, unenforceable. This use of section 302(c)(5) to create a federal substantive law of pension eligibility has not been universally accepted, however, and some courts have held that prior to ERISA pension matters were to be governed primarily by state regulation. Beam v. International Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots, 511 F.2d 975 (2d Cir. 1975).
We think the latter approach, as adopted by the Second Circuit, is correct. Although we have not heretofore ruled on whether a claim against a unión pension fund is jurisdictionally based on Taft-Hartley, we have, in a similar context, held that a retired pension plan participant’s state law action is not preempted by the exclusive jurisdiction of the NLRB. Connell v. U.S. Steel Corp., 516 F.2d 401 (5th Cir. 1975). In reaching that decision, we looked to Taft-Hartley to determine whether Congress intended state trust law to be preempted by the National Labor Relations Act.
Finally, there is an exception to the preemption doctrine for “matters of peripheral concern to federal labor law”. The Taft-Hartley Act did not remove all areas of labor law from the purview of state law. Indeed, Congress affirmatively provided that state law govern pension and welfare trust matters..... In light of the congressional objective of having [975]*975state courts (or federal diversity courts) regulate pension and welfare trust relationships in accordance with state trust law, we hold that the court’s incidental construction of a provision of federal labor law to determine if trustees have relied in their decision on an illegal act is not in itself sufficient to divest the court of jurisdiction.
Id. at 405 (citations omitted). This quote squarely supports our holding that section 302(c)(5) does not preempt the state law claims.
We next consider the effect of section 301 on Woodfork’s claim. Section 301 creates a federal common law to be used in interpreting the terms of a collectively bargained contract. The Pension Plan contends that because the terms of pension eligibility are set in a collective bargaining contract, the federal law created by section 301 governs. See Rehmar v. Smith, 555 F.2d 1362 (9th Cir. 1977). We think what we said in Connell, however, applies with as much force to section 301 as it does to section 302, and we decline to hold that Taft-Hartley preempts state regulation of this area of pension law.
V
The Motion to Amend
Assuming ERISA preempts Woodfork’s state claim, the case is not necessarily concluded. Following dismissal of his diversity claim, Woodfork moved the court to allow him to amend his pleadings to restore his ERISA claim, which he had earlier withdrawn in order to preserve venue in Louisiana. If necessary to his motion, Woodfork agreed to have the case transferred to California.9 The district court refused him this opportunity, however, explaining as follows:
Finally, plaintiff sought to amend his complaint [to restore the ERISA claims] to allege a federal cause of action in order to allow transfer of the case to California. Plaintiff chose to avoid such a transfer initially and having had a trial on the merits sought to change the cause of action. The Court saw no purpose in this. If plaintiff wishes to seek a federal remedy, he may file an action in the appropriate forum, but the state law claim asserted herein is at an end.
Record, Vol. I, at 125. Woodfork now asks that if we find ERISA preemption of his state claim, we instruct the district court to allow him to amend his complaint to restore the federal claim.
Rule 15(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which governs amendments to pleadings, reads in pertinent part as follows:
A party may amend his pleading once as a matter of course at any time before a responsive pleading is served or, if the pleading is one to which no responsive pleading is permitted and the action has not been placed upon the trial calendar, he may so amend it at any time within 20 days after it is served. Otherwise a party may amend his pleading only by leave of court or by written consent of the adverse party: and leave shall be freely given when justice so requires.
Woodfork’s amendment should have been accepted, then, if the district court found that justice so required. The district court did not, however, so find, and we can reverse only if the district court denial of the [976]*976motion to amend was an abuse of discretion. See Watson v. Employers Liability Assurance Co., 202 F.2d 407 (5th Cir. 1953), rev’d on other grounds, 348 U.S. 66, 75 S.Ct. 166, 99 L.Ed. 74 (1954).
On consideration, we hold that the district court’s refusal was an abuse of discretion. Initially, we note that the court unconditionally accepted Woodfork’s first motion to amend, which requested dismissal of his federal claim. Later, the court specifically, recognized that the dismissal was without prejudice: “If plaintiff wishes to seek a federal remedy, he may file an action in the appropriate forum. . .. ” Record, Vol. I at 125. If Woodfork was free to bring a new ERISA action, there simply was no good reason to deny him the right to amend to add his ERISA-based claim.
The district court’s rationale for denying Woodfork’s amendment was apparently two-fold. First, the sole reason Woodfork dismissed his federal claim was to change the action’s jurisdictional base, and, thus, the applicable venue requirements; in the court’s view, Woodfork cannot now complain that he has been hoisted by a procedural petard of his own making. Second, the Pension Fund has already been subjected to an unnecessary trial and should not now be subjected to still further proceedings in Louisiana.
We are unpersuaded by the court’s rationale for several reasons. The first is that the Pension Plan did not assert the preemption grounds until the eve of trial, apparently too late to postpone the commencement of the trial. Presumably, had the preemption issue been raised earlier, there would have been no trial, at least not of a diversity claim. Thus, by its delay in raising its argument, the Pension Plan must share the blame for the way the case came to trial. Second, Woodfork’s attorney’s attempt to preserve venue in Louisiana by changing the jurisdictional basis from federal question to diversity of citizenship was consistent with his obligations to his client, and does not, in our view, sully his hands to such an extent that the district court should have denied his client the opportunity to litigate his claim in the pending case rather than in a subsequent proceeding.
A third reason is more complicated. We have reviewed several cases in which diversity was alleged as the jurisdictional ground for colorable state claims preempted by federal law. In these cases, the courts, rather than dismiss, have applied federal substantive law. See Rehmar v. Smith, 555 F.2d 1362 (9th Cir. 1977) (diversity action in which Taft-Hartley preempted state law claims). We think this course, by preserving a case for substantive decision rather than dismissing it on a technicality of the pleadings, can preserve judicial resources and be fair to all parties. It is a course that, in our view, courts should ordinarily follow, even sua sponte, and which the district court might have followed here.
Given the procedural history of this case — Woodfork requesting dismissal of his federal claim and the Pension Plan responsively dropping its venue challenge — we cannot say that the district court abused its discretion in not considering on its own initiative the possible federal law claim. When faced with Woodfork’s motion to amend, however, the court should have considered, as one factor in the exercise of its discretion, its power to consider the federal claim.
We thus think that the district court, if correct in holding that ERISA preempts Woodfork’s state law claim, should have granted his motion to amend the pleadings to restore his federal claim. If on remand the court finds, consistent with this opinion, that ERISA preempts the state claims, we instruct it to grant Woodfork’s motion to amend his complaint. The question of venue, and how it would affect the amended complaint, is one for the district court to determine, if it arises.
VI
Substantive Rights
The Pension Plan’s final argument on this appeal is that Woodfork has no viable claim to pension entitlement under either state or federal law. Thus, the Plan [977]*977argues that if Woodfork manages to negotiate his way through the ease’s many procedural obstacles, we should nonetheless uphold the district court’s dismissal. We think this would be inappropriate for three reasons. First, we do not know whether Woodfork’s claims will be litigated under ERISA or state law. While we have indicated that a court, under ERISA, could apply state law, the court must ensure, before doing so, that the state law being applied does not conflict with federal policy considerations reflected in ERISA. See Rehmar v. Smith, 555 F.2d at 1368. Consequently, we are uncertain at this stage what law is to be applied. Second, if ERI-SA provides the law of this case, it may be necessary to transfer venue to the Northern District of California, where appeal lies to the Ninth Circuit. Third, the question of initial adjudication of Woodfork’s claims should, in the normal course, take place in the district court, and if a subsequent appeal to this circuit results, we expect to be guided by the district court’s reasoning. We, therefore, reverse and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
REVERSED and REMANDED.