Opinion ID: 736207
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Meaning of Instrument

Text: 16 The Act does not define instrument. Generally, however, as that term is used in the law, it refers to a document that sets out rights, duties, or obligations, or has some other legal effect. See, e.g., Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1172 (1976) (defining instrument, in pertinent part, as a legal document (as a deed, will, bond, lease, agreement, mortgage, note, power of attorney, ticket on carrier, bill of lading, insurance policy, warrant, writ) evidencing legal rights or duties esp. of one party to another); Black's Law Dictionary 941 (4th ed. 1951) ([a] document or writing which gives formal expression to a legal act or agreement, for the purpose of creating, securing, modifying, or terminating a right). The term instrument itself, therefore connotes a formal legal document. 17 The clause in which the term is used in § 104(b)(4), i.e., instruments under which [a] plan is ... operated (emphasis added), further supports this view. Use of the preposition under, rather than with or through, suggests that by instruments, Congress meant the formal legal documents that govern or confine a plan's operations, rather than the routine documents with which or by means of which a plan conducts its operations. The Fourth Circuit in Faircloth v. Lundy Packing Co., 91 F.3d 648 (4th Cir.1996), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 738, 136 L.Ed.2d 677 (1997), has reached a similar conclusion, ruling that the language of § 104(b)(4) confines administrators' disclosure obligations under that section to governing documents: 18 the statutory language other instruments under which the plan is established or operated is clear and unambiguous. Instrument means [a] formal or legal document in writing, such as a contract, deed, will, bond, or lease.... Anything reduced to writing, a document of a formal or solemn character.... Black's Law Dictionary 801 (6th ed.1990); see also Webster's New World Dictionary 700 (3d college ed.1991) (defining instrument as a formal document, [such] as a deed, contract, etc.). Establish means to order, ordain, or enact ... permanently or to set up. Webster's New World Dictionary at 465. Operate means to conduct or direct the affairs of (a business, etc.); manage. Id. at 949. Therefore, the language other instruments under which the plan is established or operated encompasses formal or legal documents under which a plan is set up or managed. 19 91 F.3d at 653. 20 Additional support for this interpretation is found in the context in which the other instruments clause is used in § 104(b)(4), for it is a familiar principle of statutory construction that words grouped in a list should be given related meaning, Schreiber v. Burlington Northern, Inc., 472 U.S. 1, 8, 105 S.Ct. 2458, 2462, 86 L.Ed.2d 1 (1985) (internal quotation marks omitted); see Hughes Salaried Retirees Action Committee v. Administrator of the Hughes Non-Bargaining Retirement Plan, 72 F.3d 686, 689 (9th Cir.1995) (en banc) (Hughes ), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 1676, 134 L.Ed.2d 779 (1996). The specific types of documents that, according to § 104(b)(4), must be disclosed to plan participants on demand are plan description[s], summary plan description[s], the latest annual report, any terminal report, the bargaining agreement, trust agreement[s], and contract[s]. All of these are formal documents. Agreements and contracts plainly set out rights and duties; the plan description sets out employee rights and employer obligations, see 29 U.S.C. § 1022(b); summary plan descriptions, which a company is required to furnish its employees, see id. § 1024(b)(1), must describe, inter alia, circumstances which may result in disqualification, ineligibility, or denial or loss of benefits, id. § 1022(b); and the annual and terminal reports provide formal disclosure of the administrators' performance of the duties imposed on them by plan instruments or by law. Thus, interpreting the clause other instruments under which the plan is established or operated as being related to the categories of documents specifically listed in § 104(b)(4) further supports our view that that clause was meant to refer to formal documents that govern the plan, not to all documents by means of which the plan conducts operations. As the Ninth Circuit stated in its en banc decision in Hughes, s 104(b)(4) requires the disclosure of only the documents described with particularity and 'other instruments' similar in nature. 72 F.3d at 691. 21 Moreover, we note that the use of the term instrument to connote a formal governing document is echoed in other sections of ERISA. Section 402(a)(1) of the Act, for example, provides that [e]very employee benefit plan shall be established and maintained pursuant to a written instrument. 29 U.S.C. § 1102(a)(1). That instrument, in turn, names the administrator and trustees of the pension plan, see id. § 1002(16)(A)(i) (defining administrator as the person specifically so designated by the terms of the instrument under which the plan is operated); id. § 1103(a) (trustee or trustees shall be ... named ... in the plan instrument described in section 1102(a) ....); and it sets forth the fiduciaries' duties, see id. § 1105(c)(1) (The instrument under which a plan is maintained may expressly provide for procedures ... for allocating fiduciary responsibilities ....); id. § 1104(a)(1)(D) (a fiduciary shall discharge his duties with respect to a plan ... in accordance with the documents and instruments governing the plan....). 22 In contrast, other sections of ERISA, which require that information be disclosed to regulatory agencies, list far broader categories of documents. For example, ERISA authorizes the Secretary of Labor to require the submission of [a plan's] reports, books, and records. Id. § 1134(a)(1) (emphasis added). Similarly, the Comptroller General is given the right to examine and copy any [of a plan's] books, documents, papers, records, or other recorded information. Id. § 1143a(2) (emphasis added). The provision for disclosure of these virtually all-encompassing categories of documents to federal officials provides further support for the inference that, in fashioning § 104(b)(4)'s more limited specification of the categories of documents that must be disclosed to plan participants, Congress did not mean the clause instruments under which the plan is ... operated to encompass all of the plan's papers, documents, recorded information, or reports. 23 The legislative history of ERISA does not suggest a contrary conclusion. That history reveals that ERISA's disclosure requirements were meant to arm plan participants with specific knowledge of their rights and remedies with respect to employee benefit plans, rather than to compel disclosure of the more technical data contained in actuarial valuation reports. The precursors to ERISA's disclosure provisions were found in the Welfare and Pension Plans Disclosure Act (Disclosure Act), Pub.L. No. 85-836, 72 Stat. 997 (1958) (codified at 29 U.S.C. §§ 301-309 (1958)), which did not require plans to disclose more than their annual reports and plan descriptions, see 29 U.S.C. § 304(a) (1958). Finding that the Disclosure Act was weak in its limited disclosure requirements, and inadequa[te] in protecting rights and benefits due to workers, H.R.Rep. No. 93-533 (1973), reprinted in 1974 U.S.C.C.A.N. 4639, 4642, Congress enacted broader disclosure requirements in ERISA, noting that the new 24 reporting requirements [are] designed to disclose more significant information about plans and the transactions engaged in by those controlling plan operations and to provide specific data to participants and beneficiaries concerning the rights and benefits they are entitled to under the plans and the circumstances which may result in their not being entitled to benefits. 25 Id. at 4648. These stated goals, i.e., of providing plan participants with more significant information about (1) the plans, (2) their rights and benefits, (3) how those rights could be lost, and (4) transactions by plan fiduciaries, in no way suggest that the information to which plan participants are entitled is unlimited. Accord Hughes, 72 F.3d at 690 (documents subject to disclosure under § 104(b)(4) are those that allow 'the individual participant [to] know[ ] exactly where he stands with respect to the plan--what benefits he may be entitled to, what circumstances may preclude him from obtaining benefits, what procedures he must follow to obtain benefits, and who are the persons to whom the management and investment of his plan funds have been entrusted'  (quoting S.Rep. No. 93-127 (1974), reprinted in 1974 U.S.C.C.A.N. 4838, 4863)). Accordingly, the legislative history does not persuade us that the instruments referred to in § 104(b)(4) encompass more than governing documents. 26