June 1, 2020
Decided June 1, 2020
Thole v. U.S. Bank, N.A., No. 17-1712
Today, the Supreme Court held 5-4 that participants in defined-benefit pension plans lack Article III standing to sue under ERISA for alleged breach of fiduciary duties because, whether or not they prevail in the action, they will receive the same payments for the rest of their lives.
Background:
Section 502(a)(2) and (a)(3) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(2) and (a)(3), authorize civil actions for breach of fiduciary duty with respect to employee pension benefit plans. Petitioners are participants in U.S. Bank’s defined-benefit pension plan, which guarantees lifetime fixed periodic payments. Although petitioners have received all payments to which they are entitled, they sued U.S. Bank for breach of fiduciary duty, alleging that plan fiduciaries did not appropriately manage the plan’s assets, causing the assets to fall below the minimum funding level that ERISA requires, and that investment of plan assets in mutual funds offered by a U.S. Bank subsidiary caused the plan to pay higher investment fees than it would have paid for other, similar mutual funds. U.S. Bank moved to dismiss, arguing that petitioners lacked Article III standing because they did not suffer an injury-in-fact. The district court granted the motion. The Eighth Circuit affirmed, but not on Article III grounds. The Court held that ERISA does not permit defined-benefit plan participants to sue for alleged breach of fiduciary duty when they have received all benefits to which they are entitled under the plan.
Issues:
Whether an ERISA defined-benefit plan participant or beneficiary can demonstrate Article III standing to bring claims alleging breach of fiduciary duty under ERISA Section 502(a)(2) or (a)(3) when the participants and beneficiaries have received all benefits to which they are contractually entitled.
Court’s Holding:
No. A participant or beneficiary in a defined-benefit ERISA plan who has received all vested benefits—and who has not shown a “substantially increased risk that the plan and employer would both fail”—cannot show the requisite injury-in-fact for Article III standing to sue for alleged breach of fiduciary duty.
“If [petitioners] were to win this lawsuit, they would still receive the exact same monthly benefits that they are already slated to receive, not a penny more. The [petitioners] therefore have no concrete stake in this lawsuit.”
Justice Kavanaugh, writing for the majority
What It Means:
The Court’s opinion is available here.
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