Whether a plaintiff must plead a 'meaningful benchmark' with similar objectives to state a claim for breach of fiduciary duty under ERISA's prudence standard

No question identified. : 1. On May 22, 2025, the Ninth Circuit entered judgment and issued its opinion, a copy of which is attached. See App. at 1. This Court has jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1254(1). 2. This case involves a significant question that has divided the circuits: What is required to plead an claim under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, 29 U.S.C. § 1104(a)(1)(B)? The federal courts of appeals have reached differing views on this question. See, e.g., Meiners v. Wells Fargo & Co., 898 F.3d 820 (8th Cir. 2018); Matousek v. MidAmerican Energy Co., 51 F.4th 274 (8th Cir. 2022); Albert v. Oshkosh Corp., 47 F.4th 570 (7th Cir. 2022); Smith v. CommonSpirit Health, 37 F.4th 1160 (6th Cir. 2022); Forman v. TriHealth, Inc., 40 F.4th 443 (6th Cir. 2022); Matney v. Barrick Gold of N. Am., 80 F 4th 1136 (10th Cir. 2023); Johnson v. Parker-Hannifin Corp., 122 F.4th 205 (6th Cir. 2024). This disagreement prompted a petition for certiorari in Johnson v. Parker-Hannifin Corp., No. 24-3014, and this Court recently called for the views of the Solicitor General in that case. See CVSG Order, Parker-Hannifin Corp. v. Johnson, --S. Ct. ---, No. 24-1030 (June 30, 2025), 2025 WL 1787707, at *1. 3. This case was originally brought by Mr. Anderson, a former Intel employee who worked at the company for fifteen years and is a fully vested participant in both Intel’s 401(k) savings plan and its retirement plan. Mr. Anderson filed this case in 2019 challenging the Intel fiduciaries’ mismanagement of their plans and their breaches of ERISA’s fiduciary duties. Soon after filing, his case was stayed pending this Court’s decision in a related lawsuit raising similar allegations, Sulyma v. Intel Corp., which the Court resolved in Mr. Sulyma’s favor. See Intel Corp. Inv. Pol’y Comm. v. Sulyma, 589 U.S. 178 (2020) (concerning the “actual knowledge” requirement in ERISA’s statute of limitations). After remand, Mr. Sulyma’s case was consolidated with Mr. Anderson’s. App. at 7. 4. The Intel fiduciaries filed a motion to dismiss the consolidated complaint, which the district court granted. Jd. The district court agreed with the plaintiffs that “plausible allegations of self-dealing or conflicts of interest, combined with plausible allegations of higher-than-average fees and poor performance suffered by investments, are sufficient to state a claim for breach of the duty of prudence under ERISA.” Anderson v. Intel Corp., 2021 WL 229235, at *11 (N.D. Cal. 2021). But, as relevant here, it found that the allegations of poor performance and excessive fees were not plausible because they failed to allege “adequate benchmarks against which to compare the Intel Funds.” Jd. at *8; see also id. at *9 (noting that the plaintiffs “failed to adequately plead factual allegations to support their claim that [they] have provided a meaningful benchmark against which to compare the fees incurred by the Intel Funds”). The court also found that the plaintiffs failed to plausibly allege that fiduciaries in 2011 would be aware of the risks of hedge-fund and private-equity investments. Jd. at *11. And it determined that the plaintiffs’ allegations about Intel’s conflicted interests were “conclusory.” Jd. at *11-12. The court therefore dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims. 7d. at *14-15. 5. The Ninth Circuit affirmed. Adopting the district court’s view of the required pleading standards, the Ninth Circuit held that, to state claims like those here, a plaintiff must include in the complaint a “meaningful benchmark”—which the court described as a “relevant comparator [fund] with similar objectives.” App. at 12. And, the court went on, this “meaningful benchmark” pleading requirement applies equally to prudence claims as well to claims regarding the incursion of higher fees. App. at 12-14. As the Ninth Circuit saw it, “to the extent a plaintiff asks a court to infer that a fiduciary used improper methods based on the performance of the investments,” the plaintiff “must