Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/17-1712_0971.pdf
Page Number: 17.0

4 

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

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

whether petitioners have an equitable interest in their re-
tirement plan’s assets even though their pension payments
are fixed. 

They do.  ERISA expressly required the creation of a trust
in which petitioners are the beneficiaries: “[A]ll assets” of
the plan “shall be held in trust” for petitioners’ “exclusive”
benefit.  29 U. S. C. §§1103(a), (c)(1); see also §1104(a)(1).2 
These requirements exist regardless whether the employer
establishes a defined-benefit or defined-contribution plan.
§1101(a).  Similarly, the Plan Document governing petition-
ers’ defined-benefit plan states that, at “ ‘all times,’ ” all plan
assets “ ‘shall’ ” be in a “ ‘trust fund’ ” managed for the par-
ticipants’ and beneficiaries’ “ ‘exclusive benefit.’ ”  App. 60– 
61.  The  Plan  Document  also  gives  petitioners  a  residual
interest in the trust fund’s assets: It instructs that, “[u]pon
termination of the Plan, each Participant [and] Beneficiary” 
shall look to “the assets of the [trust f]und” to “provide the 
benefits otherwise apparently promised in this Plan.”  Rec-
ord in No. 13–cv–2687 (D Minn.), Doc. 107–1, p. 75.  This 
arrangement confers on the “participants [and] beneficiar-
ies” of a defined-benefit plan an equitable stake, or a “com-
mon interest,” in “the financial integrity of the plan.”  Mas-
sachusetts Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Russell, 473 U. S. 134, 142, 
n. 9 (1985).

Petitioners’ equitable interest finds ample support in tra-
ditional  trust  law.  “The  creation  of  a  trust,”  like  the  one 
here,  provides  beneficiaries  “an  equitable  interest  in  the
subject  matter  of  the  trust.”  Restatement  (Second)  of 

—————— 

2 Generally, “a trust is created when one person (a ‘settlor’ or ‘grantor’)
transfers property to a third party (a ‘trustee’) to administer for the ben-
efit of another (a ‘beneficiary’).”  North Carolina Dept. of Revenue v. Kim-
berley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust, 588 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (slip
op., at 2); see also Restatement (Second) of Trusts §2 (1957).  Neither the 
Court nor respondents dispute that petitioners’ pension fund meets these 
elements.