Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/17-1712_0971.pdf
Page Number: 18.0

Cite as:  590 U. S. ____ (2020) 

5 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

Trusts §74, Comment a, p. 192 (1957); see Blair v. Commis-
sioner, 300 U. S. 5, 13 (1937).  Courts have long recognized
that  this  equitable  interest  gives  beneficiaries  a  basis  to 
“have a breach of trust enjoined and . . . redress[ed].”  Ibid.; 
see also Spokeo, 578 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 9).  That is, a 
beneficiary’s  equitable  interest  allows  her  to  “maintain  a
suit” to “compel the trustee to perform his duties,” to “enjoin
the trustee from committing a breach of trust,” to “compel
the trustee to redress a breach of trust,” and to “remove the 
trustee.”  Restatement (Second) of Trusts §199; see also id., 
§205 (beneficiary may require a trustee to restore “any loss 
or depreciation in value of the trust estate” and “any profit 
made by [the trustee] through the breach of trust”).3 

So  too  here.  Because  respondents’  alleged  mismanage-
ment lost the pension fund hundreds of millions of dollars, 
petitioners have stated an injury to their equitable property
interest in that trust. 

2 
The Court, by contrast, holds that participants and bene-
ficiaries  in  a  defined-benefit  plan  have  no  stake  in  their 
plan’s assets.  Ante, at 4.  In other words, the Court treats 
beneficiaries as mere bystanders to their own pensions.

That is wrong on several scores.  For starters, it creates 
a paradox: In one breath, the Court determines that peti-
tioners  have  “no  equitable  or  property  interest”  in  their 
plan’s assets, ante, at 4; in another, the Court concedes that 
petitioners have an enforceable interest in receiving their
“monthly pension benefits,” ante, at 2.  Benefits paid from 
where?  The plan’s assets, obviously.  Precisely because pe-
titioners  have  an  interest  in  payments  from  their  trust 

—————— 

3 Even contingent and discretionary beneficiaries (those who might not
ever receive any assets from the trust) can sue to protect the trust absent
a personal financial loss (or an imminent risk of loss).  See A. Hess, G. 
Bogert,  &  G. Bogert,  Law  of  Trusts  and Trustees  §871  (June  2019  up-
date) (Bogert & Bogert) (listing cases).