Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/17-1712_0971.pdf
Page Number: 21.0

8 

THOLE v. U. S. BANK N. A. 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

remedy trust losses) would deprive beneficiaries of their eq-
uitable interests in their trusts.  See ibid.  But the Court 
cites nothing supporting that proposition.  To the contrary,
it is well settled that beneficiaries retain equitable interests 
in  trust  assets  even  when  those  assets  are  insured  or  re-
plenished.  See  Bogert  &  Bogert  §599.  Some  States  and 
trusts require that the “property of a trust . . . be insured” 
or similarly protected; indeed, some jurisdictions impose on 
trustees a fiduciary “duty to insure.”   Ibid. (collecting au-
thorities).  None of those authorities suggests that benefi-
ciaries lose their equitable interests as a result, and none 
suggests  that  the  law  excuses  a  fiduciary’s  malfeasance 
simply because other sources may help provide relief.  The 
Court’s  opposing  view—that  employer  liability  and  insur-
ance  pardon  a  trustee’s  wrongdoing  from  a  beneficiary’s
suit—has no support in law.

Third, the Court draws a line between a trust and a con-
tract, ante, at 4, but this too is insignificant here.  The Court 
declares that petitioners’ pension plan “is more in the na-
ture  of  a  contract,”  ibid.¸  but  then  overlooks  that  the  so-
called  contract  creates  a  trust.  The  Plan  Document  ex-
pressly requires that petitioners’ pension funds be held in a 
“trust” exclusively for petitioners’ benefit.  App. 60–61.  The 
Court’s  statement  that  “the  employer,  not  plan  partici-
pants, receives any surplus left over after all of the benefits 
are paid,” cf. ante, at 4, actually proves that a trust exists.
The reason the employer does not receive any residual until
“after all of the benefits are paid,” ibid., is because the Plan 
Document provides petitioners an enforceable residual in-
terest, Record in No. 13–cv–2687, Doc. 107–1, at 75.  It is 
telling that the Court does not cite, let alone analyze, the
“contract” governing petitioners’ trust fund. 

Last, the Court cites inapposite case law.  It asserts that 
“this Court has stated” that “plan participants possess no 
equitable or property interest in the plan.”  Ante, at 4 (citing 
Hughes Aircraft Co. v. Jacobson, 525 U. S. 432 (1999), and