Part 23 · Chapter 1

ERISA §502 Litigation, Standing, and Remedies

Law stated as of October 3, 2026 · ERISA Disputes, Enforcement, Preemption, and Remedies

Scope and status

This chapter covers the ERISA civil-enforcement architecture: the §502(a) causes of action, parties and standing, pleading standards (including Cunningham v. Cornell and the pending Anderson v. Intel), the remedies doctrine (the Mertens-to-Montanile equitable-relief line and Amara), attorney's fees, and limitations periods. Scope discipline: this Part supports issue analysis and doctrine — litigation strategy, forum decisions, and case handling are expressly reserved for litigation counsel.

Citations are to primary authority (ERISA §§409, 502, 413; 29 U.S.C. §§1109, 1132, 1113; and controlling case law). Related questions are treated elsewhere: preemption and the state-law map in this Part's preemption chapter; exhaustion, standard of review, the administrative record, DOL investigations, and holds in this Part's process chapter; and claims-procedure mechanics in Part 4 (Reporting, Disclosure, Recordkeeping, and Claims).

Threshold framing. Classify every dispute by claim type first: a benefits dispute ((a)(1)(B)), a plan-injury fiduciary claim ((a)(2)), an individual equitable claim ((a)(3)), a disclosure-penalty claim ((a)(1)(A)/(c)), or an agency action. The claim type fixes the proper plaintiff and defendant, the remedy ceiling, the limitations clock, the exhaustion posture, and the review standard — most analytical errors are claim-type errors.

Sections

The opening sections of Part A are shown in full. The other sections are listed by title; their text is available to subscribers.

Part A — The §502(a) Causes of Action

A1.The map

Part 23, ch. 1, § A1

§502(a)(1)(A) — participant/beneficiary suits for §502(c) penalties (document-request failures; court-assessed in the court's discretion, up to $110 a day for (c)(1) violations after July 29, 1997 — a fixed cap, not annually indexed (29 C.F.R. §2575.502c-1); for the EBSA-assessed, inflation-adjusted §502(c) amounts, see Part 4 (Reporting, Disclosure, Recordkeeping, and Claims)).
§502(a)(1)(B) — recover benefits due, enforce rights, or clarify rights to future benefits under plan terms. The workhorse benefits claim.
§502(a)(2) — relief for the plan under §409 fiduciary liability; individual-account losses within a DC plan are recoverable ("plan" relief includes account-level injury). Case law: Supreme Court — Mass. Mutual v. Russell, 473 U.S. 134 (1985); LaRue v. DeWolff, 552 U.S. 248 (2008).
§502(a)(3) — the "catchall": appropriate equitable relief for statutory or plan violations; available for individual relief (Varity), but most circuits bar duplicative (a)(3) claims where (a)(1)(B) supplies an adequate remedy. Case law: Supreme Court — Varity Corp. v. Howe, 516 U.S. 489 (1996).
§502(a)(5)–(6), (l) — Secretary of Labor actions and penalties (the Secretary may also sue under (a)(2); participants and beneficiaries may sue under (a)(4); participants, beneficiaries, and fiduciaries under (a)(9); States under (a)(7); employers under (a)(8)); the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 (Pub. L. 119-75, §6701(b)) added §502(c)(13) — EBSA-assessed penalties of $10,000 per day for failures under new ERISA §726 (contracting with drug manufacturers, rebate aggregators, and other "applicable entities" without the required data-sharing terms; PBM reports to the plan; and plan responses to participant requests) and up to $100,000 per item of knowingly false information, assessable against plan administrators, issuers, PBMs, and applicable entities (and, for participant-request failures, any person who causes the plan's failure) — collectible in a §502(a)(6) action, including against issuers (the §502(b)(3) issuer carve-out now reaches (c)(13)); the §726 duties apply for plan years beginning on or after Aug. 3, 2028 (substance in Part 15 (Health Plan Parity, CAA, and Transparency)); §502(g) fees; §502(h) notice to agencies. Jurisdiction: exclusive federal, except (a)(1)(B) and (a)(7) (concurrent state); nationwide service of process; venue where the plan is administered, the breach occurred, or a defendant resides/is found. Statute: ERISA §502(e)–(f). No jury trial (equitable character) and no punitive or extracontractual damages (Russell).

A2.Parties and standing

Part 23, ch. 1, § A2

Statutory standing: participants (including former employees with a colorable claim to vested benefits), beneficiaries, fiduciaries, and the Secretary. Article III overlay: a DB participant paid in full suffers no injury from alleged mismanagement (Thole v. U.S. Bank, 590 U.S. 538 (2020)) — the underfunding/guarantee caveats are narrow; DC participants allege account injury (LaRue); disclosure-violation standing runs through the concrete-harm cases (TransUnion), and the health-plan fee cases are currently a standing battleground (see Part 15 (Health Plan Parity, CAA, and Transparency): Lewandowski/Navarro/Stern). Defendants: (a)(1)(B) — the plan and the entity controlling benefit determinations (the insurer for insured benefits; circuits vary on naming the plan vs. administrator); (a)(2)/(a)(3) — fiduciaries in their fiduciary capacity, and nonfiduciary parties in interest to a §406(a) prohibited transaction under (a)(3) (Harris Trust v. Salomon, 530 U.S. 238 (2000)); extending (a)(3) to knowing participants in a fiduciary breach is circuit law. Statute: ERISA §502(a); case law as cited.

A3Pleading standards — the current battlegroundSubscribers

Part B — Remedies

B1The equitable-relief line — Mertens to MontanileSubscribers
B2Amara and the make-whole toolkitSubscribers
B3Fees and interestSubscribers

Part C — Limitations

C1Fiduciary claims — §413Subscribers
C2Benefits claims — borrowed statutes and plan-imposed periodsSubscribers
C3Arbitration and class postureSubscribers

The first Part of each chapter is open to everyone. The remaining sections, with their authority and practice points, are available to subscribers and to clients of ERISA Benefits Law Group, PLLC whose engagement includes access.