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For several years, respondent employers had made contributions to two trust funds (collectively, Greater Funds) on behalf of their employees. In 1984, however, the employers ended their participation in the Greater Funds and agreed, in collective bargaining agreements with the relevant union, to establish a new set of trust funds (collectively, Southern Funds). To help finance the change between the funds, the employers and other respondents brought an action to compel petitioners, the Greater Funds and their trustees, to transfer to the Southern Funds that portion of the Greater Funds' reserves attributable to respondents' past contributions. Respondents asserted a right to relief under, inter alia, 302 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, which prohibits payments from employers to union representatives, 302(a) and (b), but affords an exception under 302(c)(5) for payments to an employee trust fund if certain conditions are met, including that the trust fund be "established . . . for the sole and exclusive benefit of the employees," and that the payments be "held in trust for the purpose of paying" employee benefits. Respondents' theory was that, unless the reserves attributable to the employers' past contributions were transferred, the Greater Funds would fail to meet 302(c)(5)'s conditions, and would thus suffer from a "structural defect" which could be remedied by the federal courts pursuant to the power conferred by 302(e) to "restrain violations of this section." The District Court granted petitioners' motion for summary judgment, finding no such "structural defect" in the Greater Funds, but the Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for the District Court to shape an appropriate remedy.
A federal court does not have authority under 302(e) to issue injunctions against a trust fund or its trustees requiring the trust funds to be administered in the manner described in 302(c)(5). Section 302(e) provides district courts with jurisdiction "to restrain violations of this section," and a violation of 302 occurs when payments prohibited by 302(a) and (b) are made. The exception to violation set forth in 302(c)(5) describes the character of the trust to which payments are allowed, leaving it originally to state trust law, and now to federal trust law under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, to [508 U.S. 581, 582] determine when breaches of that trust have occurred and how they may be remedied. Language in Arroyo v. United State, 359 U.S. 419, 426 -427, and NLRB v. Amax Coal Co., 453 U.S. 322, 331 , that is perhaps susceptible of a contrary reading is pure dicta. Pp. 587-593.
935 F.2d 528, (CA2 1991), reversed and remanded.
SCALIA, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and O'CONNOR, KENNEDY, SOUTER, and THOMAS, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which WHITE and BLACKMUN, JJ., joined, post, p. 593.
Henry Rose argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs was Linda E. Rosenzweig.
[ Footnote * ] Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the United States by Solicitor General Starr, Christopher J. Wright, Ronald J. Mann, Allen H. Feldman, Mark S. Flynn, Carol Connor Flowe, and Jeffrey B. Cohen; for the Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Health and Welfare and Pension Funds by Thomas C. Nyhan and Terence G. Craig; for the National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans by Gerald M. Feder and David R. Levin; and for the Western Conference of Teamsters Pension Trust Fund by Robert M. Westberg and Kirke M. Hasson.
This case presents the question whether a federal district court may issue an injunction pursuant to 302 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947 (LMRA), 61 Stat. 157, as amended, 29 U.S.C. 186 (1988 ed. and Supp. III), requiring the trustees of a multiemployer trust fund to transfer assets from that fund to a new multiemployer trust fund established by employers who broke away from the first fund.
Respondents include a group of employers that, until 1981, were members of a multiemployer bargaining association, the Greater New York Health Care Facilities Association, Inc. (Greater Employer Association). Two trust funds [508 U.S. 581, 583] - the Local 144 Nursing Home Pension Fund and the New York City Nursing Home - Local 144 Welfare Fund (collectively, Greater Funds) - were established pursuant to collective bargaining agreements between the Greater Employer Association and the relevant union, Local 144 of the Hotel, Hospital, Nursing Home and Allied Services Employees Union, Service Employees International Union, AFL-CIO (Local 144). Prior to 1981, the respondent employers made contributions to the Greater Funds on behalf of their employees in accordance with the terms of collective bargaining agreements negotiated between the Greater Employer Association and Local 144.
In 1981, the respondent employers broke away from the Greater Employer Association and executed independent collective bargaining agreements with Local 144. The initial agreements required continuing employer contributions to the Greater Funds, but those concluded in 1984 provided for establishment of a new set of trust funds, the Local 144 Southern New York Residential Health Care Facilities Association Pension Fund, and the Local 144 Southern New York Residential Health Care Facilities Association Welfare Fund (Southern Funds). At approximately the same time, the respondent employers ended their participation in the Greater Funds.
In negotiating the transfer from the Greater Funds to the Southern Funds, the "primary concern" of Local 144 was to make sure that the shift would not cause its members to lose benefits. 935 F.2d 528, 530 (CA2 1991). To address that concern, the respondent employers guaranteed in their collective bargaining agreements that the Southern Funds would recognize all credited service time earned under the Greater Funds and, more generally, that employees would not lose any benefits as a result of the withdrawal from the Greater Funds. See 710 F.Supp. 58, 60-61 (SDNY 1989). That guarantee obviously created some peculiar liabilities for the Southern Funds. For example, an employee who had earned nine years credited service time under the [508 U.S. 581, 584] Greater Funds would, after just one more year, of service, acquire vested rights to pension benefits pursuant to the 10-year vesting requirement of the Southern Funds - even though the Southern Funds had received only one year of employer contributions for that employee. See id., at 61, n. 4. The Southern Funds' assumption of these liabilities, however, did not alter the obligations of the Greater Funds, which were not parties to the collective bargaining agreements: they remained liable to the departing employees for all vested benefits. See id., at 61, and n. 5, 65; 935 F.2d, at 530-531.
To help cover the Southern Funds' liabilities and in general to help finance the change from the Greater Funds to the Southern Funds, the respondent employers - joined by several of their employees and the trustees of the Southern Funds - brought this action to compel petitioners, the Greater Funds and the Greater Funds' trustees, to transfer an appropriate fractional share of the Greater Funds' assets to the Southern Funds. They asserted right to relief under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. 1001 et seq. (1988 ed. and Supp. III), and under 302 of the LMRA; only the latter claim is at issue here.
The relevant portions of 302 are set forth in the margin. 1 To describe respondents' claim, it is necessary to sketch the [508 U.S. 581, 585] structure of that provision. Subsection (a) prohibits an employer (or an association of employers, such as the Greater Employer Association) from, inter alia, making payments to any representative of its employees, including the employees' union and union officials. Paragraph (b)(1) is the "reciprocal" of subsection (a), Arroyo v. United States, 359 U.S. 419, 423 (1959), making it unlawful for employee representatives to receive the payments prohibited by subsection (a). The prohibitions of subsection (a) and paragraph (b)(1) are drawn broadly, and would prevent payments to union employee health and welfare funds such as those at issue here. See generally United States v. Ryan, 350 U.S. 299, 304 -305 (1956); Goetz, Employee Benefit Trusts under Section [508 U.S. 581, 586] 302 of Labor Management Relations Act, 59 Nw.U. L.Rev. 719, 723-731 (1965). Subsection 302(c), however, provides exceptions to the prohibitions. Most significantly for our purposes, paragraph (c)(5) excepts payments to an employee trust fund so long as certain conditions are met, including that the trust fund be "established . . . for the sole and exclusive benefit of the employees," and that the payments be "held in trust for the purpose of paying" employee benefits.
Respondents' theory is that the Greater Funds cannot meet those last quoted conditions unless they transfer to the Southern Funds the portion of their reserves that is attributable to the respondents' past contributions. If they fail to do so, according to respondents, they will suffer from a "structural defect" which can be remedied by federal courts pursuant to the power conferred by 302(e) to "restrain violations of this section."
Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals relied on the Second Circuit's earlier decision in Local 50, Bakery and Confectionery Workers Union, AFL-CIO v. Local 3, Bakery and Confectionery Workers Union, AFL-CIO, 733 F.2d 229 (1984), which held that federal courts have "`jurisdiction under [ 302(e)] to enforce a trust fund's compliance with the statutory standards set forth in subsection (c)(5) by eliminating those offensive features in the structure or operation of the trust that would cause it to fail to qualify for a (c)(5) exception." Id., at 234 (quoting Associated Contractors of Essex Cty., Inc. v. Laborers Int'l Union of North America, 559 F.2d 222, 225 (CA3 1977)). Local 50 and the decision below are among a large body of conflicting cases bearing upon federal courts' powers under 302(e) to supervise the administration of 302(c)(5) trust funds. A number of courts have held that 302(e) confers broad supervisory powers. See, e.g., Ponce v. Construction Laborers Pension Trust for Southern California, 628 F.2d 537, 541-542 (CA9 1980); Lewis v. Mill Ridge Coals, Inc., 298 F.2d 552, 558 (CA6 1962). Others have held that it confers no supervisory powers at all. See, e.g., Ader v. Hughes, 570 F.2d 303, 306 (CA10 1978); Bowers v. Ulpiano Casal, Inc., 393 F.2d 421 (CA1 1968); Moses v. Ammond, 162 F.Supp. 866, 871-872 (SDNY 1958). Still others have acknowledged supervisory powers limited in various respects. See Riley v. MEBA Pension Trust, 570 F.2d 406, 412-413 (CA2 1977); Knauss v. Gorman, 583 F.2d 82, 86 87 (CA3 1978). Our most recent case in this area expressly reserved the question. See Mine Workers Health and Retirement Funds v. Robinson, 455 U.S. 562, 573 , n. 12 (1982).
A few courts and some academic commentators have drawn an analogy between 301 and 302 of the LMRA, and have suggested that, as 301 has been held to create a federal common law governing labor contracts, see Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills of Ala., 353 U.S. 448 (1957), so too should 302 be viewed as authorizing the development of "a specialized body of federal common law of trust administration." Goetz, Developing Federal Labor Law of Welfare and Pension Plans, 55 Cornell L.Rev. 911, 930 (1970). One [508 U.S. 581, 590] court has said, quoting Lincoln Mills, supra, at 457, that "jurisdiction in a case of this kind can be found within the `penumbra of express statutory mandate' of Section 302." Lugo v. Employees Retirement Fund of Illumination Products Industry, 366 F.Supp. 99, 103 (EDNY 1973), quoted approvingly in Alvares v. Erickson, 514 F.2d 156, 166 (CA9) cert. denied, 423 U.S. 874 (1975). See also Nedd v. United Mine Workers of America, 556 F.2d 190, 203 (CA3 1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1013 (1978). A comparison of 302(e) with 301(a) shows that the analogy to Lincoln Mills is inapt. The latter provides a federal cause of action for any "violation of contracts between an employer and a labor organization." Subsection 302(e), by contrast, provides no cause of action for a "violation of the fiduciary duties imposed pursuant to an employee benefit trust fund"; rather, it allows federal courts to "restrain violations" of 302, which, as we have explained, occur when payments to a nonqualifying trust are made or received.
The text of 302 requires that, if payments are to be exempt from its prohibition, they must be "held in trust for the purpose of paying" employee benefits, and the trust must be "established" for the sole and exclusive benefit of the employees. There is nothing to suggest that this had the ambitious purpose of [establishing an entire body of federal trust law], rather than merely describing the character of the trust to which payments are allowed, leaving it to state law to determine when breaches of that trust have occurred and how they may be remedied. As observed by the court in Moses v. Ammond, 162 F. Supp., at 872, n. 14, 302(c)(5) is akin to a provision such as 401(a) of the Internal Revenue Code, 26 U.S.C. 401(a) (1988 ed. and Supp. III), which (in connection with 26 U.S.C. 501 (1988 ed. and Supp. III)) provides a tax exemption for employer-created pension trust funds so long as, inter alia, they are "created . . . for the exclusive benefit of [the employer's] employees or their beneficiaries." No one would contend that that provision confers [508 U.S. 581, 591] upon the federal courts authority to govern and enforce the trusts, and there is no more reason to reach such a conclusion here.
In addition to the 302 claim, respondents' complaint asserted two ERISA claims, one based on ERISA's asset transfer rules, 29 U.S.C. 1414, and the other on ERISA's above-mentioned fiduciary duty provision, 1104. The District Court ruled against respondents on both claims but, because of its ruling on 302, the Court of Appeals did not reach them. Neither do we and, on remand, the Court of Appeals will be free to consider them.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
"(b) . . .(1) It shall be unlawful for any person to request, demand, receive, or accept, or agree to receive or accept, any payment, loan, or [508 U.S. 581, 585] delivery of any money or other thing of value prohibited by subsection (a) of this section.
"(c) . . . The provisions of this section shall not be applicable . . . (5) with respect to money or other thing of value paid to a trust fund established by [the representative of the employees], for the sole and exclusive benefit of the employees of such employer, and their families and dependents (or of such employees, families and dependents jointly with the employees of other employers making similar payments, and their families and dependents): Provided, That (A) such payments are held in trust for the purpose of paying . . . for the benefit of employees, their families and dependents, for medical or hospital care, pensions on retirement or death of employees, . . . (B) the detailed basis on which such payments are to be made is specified in a written agreement with the employer . . .; and (C) such payments as are intended to be used for the purpose of providing pensions or annuities for employees are made to a separate trust which provides that the funds held therein cannot be used for any purpose other than paying such pensions or annuities; . . .
"(e) The district courts of the United States and the United States courts of the Territories and possessions shall have jurisdiction, for cause shown, and subject to the provisions of section 381 of title 28 (relating to notice to opposite party) to restrain violations of this section, without regard to the provisions of section 17 of title 15 and section 52 of this title, and the provisions of chapter 6 of this title."
[ Footnote 2 ] JUSTICE STEVENS asserts that our holding is "uninvited," post, at 601, was "quite unanticipated by the submissions of the parties" post, at 595, and has been reached "[w]ithout the benefit of argument . . . by either litigant," That is not so. The Summary of Argument in petitioners' brief began with the assertion that 302(c)(5) was only "a narrow exception to a broad criminal prohibition." Brief for Petitioners 7. The first subdivision of the Argument elaborated on that point, arguing that the provision conferred no authority "to oversee the administration of employee benefit plans." Id., at 8. And the next subdivision, entitled "Lower Federal Courts Have Misconstrued Section 302(c)(5) in Asserting Broad Jurisdiction over the Regulation of Employee Benefit Plans," systematically criticized the lower court jurisprudence permitting regulation of benefit plans, including cases from almost every Circuit. Id., at 11-18. The subdivision concluded: "[T]he federal courts simply do not have the power, by reason of Section 302(c)(5), to restructure and regulate employee benefit plans." Id., at 18 (footnote omitted). By [attacking the basic authority of federal courts to regulate 302(c)(5) trust funds,] petitioners raised the issue we decide here, and amply discussed the considerations bearing upon it. Respondents evidently understood the import of petitioners' argument. They devoted an entire subdivision of their brief to the topic "Federal Courts Have Authority To Remedy Violations Of Section 302(c)(5) In Civil Cases." See Brief for Respondents 17-19. In response to our point here, JUSTICE STEVENS quotes a passage from a [508 U.S. 581, 589] different section of petitioners' brief and claims that it is "disingenuous" to characterize that argument as a broad attack on a federal court's power. Post, at 6, n. 4. We do not do so.
[ Footnote 3 ] JUSTICE STEVENS concludes that "it is perfectly clear that funds are no longer "held in trust for the purpose" of benefiting employees if, immediately after deposit into a legitimate trust fund, they are diverted for some improper purpose." Post, at 597-598, n. 3. It is true that funds are "no longer" held in trust if they are misappropriated (just as it is true that funds are "no longer" held in trust when they are paid out in the form of pensions), but it is also irrelevant. If the payments, when received by the relevant employee representative, "are held in trust" and that trust satisfies the other requirements of 302(c)(5) (including that it have been "established" for the proper purposes), the exception in 302(c)(5) applies and the payments do not violate 302. This was our precise holding in Arroyo v. United States, 359 U.S. 419 (1959). The union official in that case, immediately upon receiving the employer's contributions to the trust fund, had begun diverting the funds to improper purposes. See id., at 422. Indeed, "the evidence could properly support an inference that the [union official's] purpose from the outset was to appropriate the [contributions to the fund] for his own use." Id., at 423 (emphasis added). Nevertheless, we held that the employer's payments were "within the precise language of 302(c)." Ibid. We deemed the payments to have been "held in trust for the purpose" of benefiting employees since they were made to a trust fund established for that purpose. See id., at 421, 423. JUSTICE STEVENS criticizes us for relying on this "half" of Arroyo while disregarding the other "half," see post, at 3, n. 1, but the "half" to which we adhere is holding, and the "half" we disregard, dictum.
[ Footnote 4 ] While JUSTICE STEVENS does not dispute that this statement was dictum, he argues that "the reasoning that led us to [that] conclusion . . . is not so easily dismissed." Post, at 4 (emphasis added). We disagree. As one will see by reading the relevant passage from Arroyo (set forth in the concurrence, post, at 596-597), the "reasoning" consisted of [leaping] from the correct premise, that Congress limited the purposes for which exempt trust funds could be used, to the [entirely unsupported conclusion], that 302(e), rather than state trust law, was to be the means by which that limitation was enforced. It is an ipse dixit, rather than a reasoned conclusion - and, to boot, an ipse dixit contradicted by the very holding of the case in which it was pronounced. Arroyo held that malfeasance in the administration of trust funds did not create federal criminal liability under 302, and there is no basis in either text or reason why it should nonetheless create federal civil liability.
[ Footnote 5 ] JUSTICE STEVENS' concluding words are that our action today is "a radical departure from the doctrine of judicial restraint." Post, at 601. We have already refuted his claim that our ruling is reached uninvited and without benefit of argument. See supra, at 588-589, n. 2. His lack-of-restraint criticism seems principally directed, however, at our "departure from [the] understanding" of 302(c)(5), post, at 601, reflected in the dicta of earlier cases - such as the excerpt that he quotes from Mine Workers Health and Retirement Funds v. Robinson, 455 U.S. 562, 573 , n. 12 (1982) (STEVENS, J.), see post, at 600. This seems to us a topsy-turvy version of judicial restraint. It was, if anything, those [dicta] themselves - uninvited, unargued, and unnecessary to the Court's holdings - which insulted that virtue; and we would add injury to insult by according them precedential effect.
[ Footnote 6 ] Title 29 U.S.C. 1104(a)(1) (1988 ed. and Supp. III) provides: "[A] fiduciary shall discharge his duties with respect to a plan solely in the interest of the participants and beneficiaries and - (A) for the exclusive purpose of: (i) providing benefits to participants and their beneficiaries; and (ii) defraying reasonable expenses of administering the plan."
JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE WHITE and JUSTICE BLACKMUN join, concurring in the judgment.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals should be reversed because petitioners' failure to transfer assets to respondents' Southern Funds did not violate 302(c)(5) of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947 (LMRA), 29 U.S.C. 186(c)(5) (1988 ed., Supp. III). Because the Court unnecessarily decides that 302(e) of the LMRA would not authorize injunctive relief even had petitioners violated the specific standards of 302(c)(5), I do not join its opinion.
As the Court explains, see ante, at 582-584, this case arose when respondent employers withdrew from the Greater Funds, a multiemployer trust fund, and negotiated an independent union agreement establishing the Southern Funds. Respondents then sought a transfer to the Southern Funds of that portion of the Greater Funds' assets representing respondents' past contributions on behalf of their employees. 935 F.2d 528, 531 (CA2 1991). The Court of Appeals agreed that a transfer was necessary, reasoning that retention by the Greater Funds of the assets contributed by respondents would violate the "sole and exclusive benefit" provision [508 U.S. 581, 594] of 302(c)(5). Id., at 533-534; see ante, at 586. We granted certiorari to review that holding. See Pet. for Cert. i.
I would decide this case on the narrow ground presented: that the refusal to make the transfer at issue did not violate 302(c)(5), 29 U.S.C. 186(c)(5) (1988 ed., Supp. III). That provision allows payments into trusts not only "for the sole and exclusive benefit of the employees of [the contributing] employer," but also for the benefit of "such employees, families, and dependents jointly with the employees of other employers making similar payments, and their families and dependents." To the extent respondents' previous contributions to the Greater Funds have not been used already to benefit respondents' own employees, they now will be used for the benefit of "employees of other employers making similar payments, and their families and dependents." Ibid. Hence, the Greater Funds continue to operate within the constraints of 302(c)(5), and no transfer is required.
In short, I agree with the United States, appearing as amicus curiae, that petitioners did not violate 302(c)(5) when they refused to transfer some proportional share of assets to the Southern Funds. The Court eschews this straightforward rule of decision, however, in favor of a far broader approach, [quite unanticipated by the submissions of the parties.] [Without the benefit of argument on the point by either litigant], the Court reaches out to overrule decades of case law by deciding that 302(e) does not authorize a civil remedy for violations of 302(c)(5). In my view, this reinvention of 302 of the LMRA is as unwise as it is uninvited.
The majority repudiates this understanding of 302(c)(5)'s operation, reflected also in NLRB v. Amax Coal Co., 453 U.S. 322, 331 (1981), and Mine Workers Health and Retirement Funds v. Robinson, 455 U.S. 562, 570 -572 (1982), as "pure dictum." Ante, at 591. But [the reasoning that led us to our conclusion in Arroyo is not so easily dismissed.] As we explained in that case, 302(c)(5) was enacted not merely to exempt specified conduct from the prohibitions of 302(a) and (b), but also to ensure that union trust funds, once established, would continue to benefit the designated employees. 359 U.S., at 424 -427.
[ Footnote 1 ] The majority relies heavily on one [half] of Arroyo while disregarding the other. See ante, at 589, n. 3. I note here only that the Court in Arroyo never determined that funds diverted after establishment of a trust are "held in trust for the purpose" of benefiting employees, ibid.; to the contrary, its reliance on 302(e) to remedy such abuses supports quite the opposite conclusion. In any event, what Arroyo held is that payment and [508 U.S. 581, 596] receipt of trust funds do not violate 302(a) and (b) if the funds are later diverted, not that the later diversion does not violate 302(c)(5).
[ Footnote 2 ] When the Court characterizes this passage as "leaping" to an "entirely unsupported conclusion," see ante, at 591, n. 4, it ignores the abundant support for that conclusion in the legislative history cited in Justice Stewart's opinion.
More important, however, is the fact that other provisions of 302(c)(5) clearly set forth standards for the continuing administration of trust funds. By their very terms, these standards demand compliance on an ongoing basis. See 302(c)(5)(B) (employees and employers must be equally represented in fund administration); 302(c)(5)(C) (payments to be used for pensions or annuities must be made to a separate trust). The obvious purpose of 302(e) - a subsection largely overlooked by the majority - is to provide a vehicle for enforcing 302(c)(5)'s ongoing obligations, among them the requirement that funds be held in trust for the benefit of employees.
[ Footnote 5 ] See, e.g., Bowers v. Ulpiano Casal, Inc., 393 F.2d 421, 424, 11 4 (CA1 1968); Lugo v Employees Retirement Fund of Illumination Products Industry, 529 F.2d 251, 254-256 (CA2 1976); Sheet Metal Workers' Local 28 of New Jersey Welfare Fund v. Gallagher, 960 F.2d 1195, 1210 (CA3 1992); Seafarers Pension Plan v. Sturgis, 630 F.2d 218, 220-221 (CA4 1980); Johnson v. Franco, 727 F.2d 442, 446-447 (CA5 1984); Sellers v. O'Connell, 701 F.2d 575, 577 (CA6 1983); Stinson v. Ironworkers District Council of Southern Ohio and Vicinity Pension Trust, 869 F.2d 1014, 1019 (CA7 1989); Holcomb v. United Automotive Assn. of St. Louis, Inc., 852 F.2d 330, 332-335 (CA8 1988); Ponce v. Construction Laborers Pension Trust for Southern California, 628 F.2d 537, 541-542 (CA9 1980); Ader v. Hughes, 570 F.2d 303, 306 308 (CA10 1978); Central Florida Sheet Metal Contractors Assn., Inc. v. NLRB, 664 F.2d 489, 498 (CA5 1981); Central Tool Co. v. International Assn. of Machinists Nat. Pension Fund, 258 U.S. App. D.C. 309, 322, n. 77, 811 F.2d 651, 664, n. 77 (1987).
[ Footnote 6 ] The Court seems to assume that the question reserved in Robinson was the very different one it answers today. See ante, at 587.
Petitioners, on the other hand, share our understanding of what was decided in Robinson and what remained open for decision. Notwithstanding the protestations of the majority, see ante, at 588-589, n. 2, petitioners' argument on this point was limited to the proposition that 302(c)(5) does not "establish federal fiduciary standards for trustees of employee benefit plans," Brief for Petitioners 10. Petitioners never argue that 302(e) does not provide a remedy when the specific standards of 302(c)(5) are violated; to the contrary, petitioners cite with approval the holding from [508 U.S. 581, 600] Bowers, supra, that the only violations "within the federal courts' authority involved the failure to meet the specific requirements of Section 302(c)(5)." Brief for Petitioners 12 (emphasis in original). Nor do petitioners ever argue that 302(c)(5)'s "exclusive benefit" obligation is satisfied finally at the time of trust establishment; rather, petitioners understand 302(c)(5) to require that a trust "(1) use employer contributions only for specified types of benefits; (2) use those assets only for benefits for employees and families of the contributing employer and the employees and families of other contributing employers. . . ." Id., at 8 (emphasis added).

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