496
Opinion of the Court
We consider all three issues to be fairly within the scope of the questions that Varity posed in its petition for certiorari, although only with respect to the workers who were deceived by Varity, for as we construe Varity's petition, it does not sufficiently call into question the District Court's holding that Varity breached a fiduciary duty with respect to the Massey-Ferguson retirees whose benefit obligations had been involuntarily assigned to Massey Combines. With these limitations in mind, we turn to the questions presented.
II
ERISA protects employee pensions and other benefits by providing insurance (for vested pension rights, see ERISA § 4001 et seq.), specifying certain plan characteristics in detail (such as when and how pensions vest, see §§ 201-211), and by setting forth certain general fiduciary duties applicable to the management of both pension and nonpension benefit plans. See § 404. In this case, we interpret and apply these general fiduciary duties and several related statutory provisions.
In doing so, we recognize that these fiduciary duties draw much of their content from the common law of trusts, the law that governed most benefit plans before ERISA's enactment. See Central States, Southeast & Southwest Areas Pension Fund v. Central Transport, Inc., 472 U. S. 559, 570 (1985) ("[R]ather than explicitly enumerating all of the powers and duties of trustees and other fiduciaries, Congress invoked the common law of trusts to define the general scope of their authority and responsibility"); H. R. Rep. No. 93-533, pp. 3-5, 11-13 (1973), 2 Legislative History of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (Committee Print compiled for the Senate Subcommittee on Labor of the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare by the Library of Congress), Ser. No. 93-406, pp. 2350-2352, 2358-2360 (1976) (hereinafter Leg. Hist.); G. Bogert & G. Bogert, Law of Trusts and Trustees § 255, p. 343 (rev. 2d ed. 1992).
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