PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, et al. v. Timothy Laurent, Individually and on Behalf of All Others Similarly Situated, et al.

Section 502(a) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”), 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a), includes 11 paragraphs, each authorizing particular types of plaintiffs to pursue distinct types of relief. Section 502(a)(1)(B) permits courts to enforce employee-benefit plan terms only “as written.” CIGNA Corp. v. Amara, 563 U.S. 421, 436 (2011). Section 502(a)(3) permits only the equitable remedies “typically available in premerger equity courts,” Montanile v. Bd. of Trs. of Nat. Elevator Indus. Health Benefit Plan, 136 S. Ct. 651, 657 (2016), and an action to “impose personal liability … for a contractual obligation to pay money” is “relief that was not typically available in equity,” Great-West Life & Annuity Ins. Co. v. Knudson, 534 U.S. 204, 210 (2002). In this case, the Second Circuit recognized that plaintiffs, a class of former plan participants, were not entitled to additional benefits under the plan as written. Nevertheless, in conflict with at least five other circuits, the Second Circuit held that the district court could use the equitable authority of § 502(a)(3) to reform plan terms as a purported “preparatory step” to enforcing the reformed plan under § 502(a)(1)(B). By combining parts of each of the two distinct remedial provisions in this fashion, the Second Circuit authorized an award of monetary damages that is not permitted by either provision individually. The question presented is: Whether the Second Circuit improperly combined parts of two separate remedial sections under ERISA, interpreting § 502(a)(3) to permit reformation of a plan solely as a preparatory step to ultimate relief under § 502(a)(1)(B) in the form of money damages.