Employment — ERISA

Listen to this article

U.S. Supreme Court

Civil

Employment — ERISA

Traditional equitable doctrines and defenses do not apply to sec. 502(a)(3) suits under ERISA.

Sereboff’s logic dooms McCutchen’s argument that two equitable doctrines meant to prevent unjust enrichment—the double-recovery rule and common-fund doctrine—can override the terms of an ERISA plan in such a suit. As in Sereboff, US Airways is seeking to enforce the modern-day equivalent of an equitable lien by agreement. Such a lien both arises from and serves to carry out a contract’s provisions. See 547 U. S., at 363–364. Thus, enforcing the lien means holding the parties to their mutual promises and declining to apply rules — even if they would be “equitable” absent a contract — at odds with the parties’ expressed commitments. The Court has found nothing to the contrary in the historic practice of equity courts. McCutchen identifies a slew of cases in which courts applied the equitable doctrines invoked here, but none in which they did so to override a clear contract that provided otherwise. This result comports with ERISA’s focus on what a plan provides: §502(a)(3) does not “authorize ‘appropriate equitable relief’ at large,” Mertens, 508 U. S., at 253, but countenances only such relief as will enforce “the terms of the plan” or the statute.

663 F. 3d 671, vacated and remanded.

11-1285 US Airways, Inc. v. McCutchen

Kagan, J.; Scalia, J., dissenting.