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Page Number: 19.0

6 

RUTLEDGE v. PHARMACEUTICAL CARE 
MANAGEMENT ASSN. 
THOMAS, J., concurring 

  But it is not enough for this Court to reach the right con-
clusions.  We should do so in the way Congress instructed.  
Indeed, although we have generally arrived at the conclu-
sions we would arrive at under a text-based approach, our 
capacious,  nontextual  test  encourages  departure  from  the 
text.  The decision below is testament to that problem.  We 
unanimously reverse that decision today, but we can hardly 
fault  judges  when  they  apply  the  amorphous test  that  we 
gave them.  We can and should do better. 

—————— 
(1997).  That makes sense because ERISA has nothing to say about those 
activities.