On remand from the United States Supreme Court, which held in May 2015 that ERISA imposes on retirement plan fiduciaries an ongoing duty to monitor investments, even absent a change in circumstances, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed the district court’s original judgment in favor of the employer and its benefits plan administrator on claims of breach of fiduciary duty in the selection and retention of certain mutual funds for a benefit plan governed by ERISA.
The court of appeals had previously affirmed the district court’s holding that the plan beneficiaries’ claims regarding the selection of mutual funds in 1999 were time-barred. The Supreme Court vacated the court of appeals’ decision, observing that federal law imposes on fiduciaries an ongoing duty to monitor investments even absent a change in circumstances.
On remand, the panel held that the beneficiaries forfeited such ongoing-duty-to-monitor argument by failing to raise it either before the district court or in their initial appeal. While the fiduciaries ultimately prevailed in this case, the lesson for fiduciaries remains clear: You have an ongoing duty to monitor the investment options in your retirement plans.
Tibble v. Edison International (9th Cir., 2016)
Full Text of the Supreme Court Decision in Tibble v. Edison International (2015)
