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Supreme Court's LaRue Decision Interprets ERISA's Remedies to Fit a 401(k) World

By Stuart Sirkin and Christa Haas Bierma
April 29, 2008

As that great philosopher Bob Dylan once sang, The Times They Are a-Changin'. Now the Supremes (the Court, not the singing group) in LaRue v. Dewolff, Boberg & Associates, Inc., 128 S. Ct. 1020, has officially recognized that the times have changed for retirement plans.

In a Feb. 20, 2008 decision, fascinating on several levels, a majority of the Court found that the 'landscape [of employee benefit plans] has changed.' As a result, the majority of the Court limited its 1985 language in Massachusetts Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Russell, 473 U.S. 134 (1985) that certain remedies were intended to protect the 'entire plan, rather than … the rights of an individual beneficiary' to defined benefit plans. For defined contribution plans, such as 401(k) plans, the Court found that individual harm from fiduciary breach was enough.

The fact that the landscape has changed and that defined contribution plans reign supreme (no pun intended) is certainly not news to sponsors, participants, or benefit practitioners. However, the recognition of the majority of the Court that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ('ERISA') remedy provisions should be interpreted differently for defined benefit plans and defined contribution plans because when ERISA was enacted the drafters mostly had defined benefit plans in mind is surprising.

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