---
kind: "section"
citation: "29 U.S.C. § 1139"
title: "29"
title_heading: "Labor"
number: "1139"
heading: "Separability"
release: "119-102"
date: "2026-07-12"
url: "https://uscodex.org/usc/29/1139"
units:
  - "Chapter 18 — Employee Retirement Income Security Program"
  - "Subchapter I — Protection of Employee Benefit Rights"
  - "Subtitle B — Regulatory Provisions"
  - "Part 5 — administration and enforcement"
---

# §1139. Separability


If any provision of this chapter, or the application of such provision to any [person](/usc/29/1301.md?p=a-20) or circumstances, shall be held invalid, the remainder of this chapter, or the application of such provision to [persons](/usc/29/1301.md?p=a-20) or circumstances other than those as to which it is held invalid, shall not be affected thereby.


## Source credit

(Pub. L. 93–406, title I, § 509, Sept. 2, 1974, 88 Stat. 895.)

## Notes

### Editorial Notes

### References in Text

This chapter, referred to in text, was in the original “this Act”, meaning Pub. L. 93–406, known as the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. Titles I, III, and IV of such Act are classified principally to this chapter. For complete classification of this Act to the Code, see Short Title note set out under section 1001 of this title and Tables.

### Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

### Regulations

Secretary authorized, effective Sept. 2, 1974, to promulgate regulations wherever provisions of this subchapter call for the promulgation of regulations, see section 1031 of this title.