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

6 

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

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

fund,  they  have  an  interest  in  the  integrity  of  the  assets 
from which those payments come.  See Russell, 473 U. S., 
at 142, n. 9. 

The Court’s contrary conclusion is unrecognizable in the 
fundamental trust law that both ERISA and the Plan Doc-
ument  expressly  incorporated.    If  the  participants  and
beneficiaries in a defined-benefit plan did not have equita-
ble title to the plan’s assets, then no one would.  Yet that 
would  mean  that  no  “trust”  exists,  contrary  to  the  plain
terms  of  both  ERISA  and  the  Plan  Document.  See  29 
U. S. C. §1103(a); App. 60; see also n. 2, supra; Blair, 300 
U. S., at 13; Bogert & Bogert §1; Restatement (Second) of 
Trusts §74, Comment a, at 192. 

Recognizing this problem, the Court asserts that, despite 
our case law, ERISA’s text, and petitioners’ Plan Document, 
trust law is not relevant at all.  The Court announces that 
all “plaintiffs who allege mismanagement of a defined-ben-
efit plan,” regardless of their plan terms, cannot invoke a
“trust-law analogy” to “support Article III standing.”  Ante, 
at 4. 

That categorical conclusion has no basis in logic or law.
Logically, the Court’s reasoning relies on tautology.  To dis-
tinguish an ERISA trust fund from a private trust fund, the 
Court observes that petitioners’ payments have not “fluctu-
ate[d] with the value of the plan or because of the plan fi-
duciaries’  good  or  bad  investment  decisions”  in  the  past, 
ante, at 1, so petitioners will necessarily continue to receive
full payments “for the rest of their lives,” no matter the out-
come of this suit, ante, at 3.  But that is circular: Petitioners 
will receive benefits indefinitely because they receive bene-
fits now?  The Court does not explain how the pension could 
satisfy  its  monthly  obligation  if,  as  petitioners  allege,  the 
plan fiduciaries drain the pool from which petitioners’ fixed 
income streams flow. 

Legally, the Court’s analysis lists distinctions without a
difference.  First, the Court writes that a trust promising