590
Opinion of the Court
has said, quoting Lincoln Mills, supra, at 457, that "jurisdiction in a case of this kind can be found within the 'penumbra of express statutory mandate' of Section 302." Lugo v. Employees Retirement Fund of Illumination Products Industry, 366 F. Supp. 99, 103 (EDNY 1973), quoted approvingly in Alvares v. Erickson, 514 F. 2d 156, 166 (CA9), cert. denied, 423 U. S. 874 (1975). See also Nedd v. United Mine Workers of America, 556 F. 2d 190, 203 (CA3 1977), cert. denied, 434 U. S. 1013 (1978). A comparison of § 302(e) with § 301(a) shows that the analogy to Lincoln Mills is inapt. The latter provides a federal cause of action for any "violation of contracts between an employer and a labor organization." Subsection § 302(e), by contrast, provides no cause of action for a "violation of the fiduciary duties imposed pursuant to an employee benefit trust fund"; rather, it allows federal courts to "restrain violations" of § 302, which, as we have explained, occur when payments to a nonqualifying trust are made or received.
The text of § 302 requires that, if payments are to be exempt from its prohibition, they must be "held in trust for the purpose of paying" employee benefits and the trust must be "established" for the sole and exclusive benefit of the employees. There is nothing to suggest that this had the ambitious purpose of establishing an entire body of federal trust law, rather than merely describing the character of the trust to which payments are allowed, leaving it to state law to determine when breaches of that trust have occurred and how they may be remedied. As observed by the court in Moses v. Ammond, 162 F. Supp., at 872, n. 14, § 302(c)(5) is akin to a provision such as § 401(a) of the Internal Revenue Code, 26 U. S. C. § 401(a) (1988 ed. and Supp. III), which (in connection with 26 U. S. C. § 501 (1988 ed. and Supp. III)) provides a tax exemption for employer-created pension trust funds so long as, inter alia, they are "created . . . for the exclusive benefit of [the employer's] employees or their beneficiaries." No one would contend that that provision confers
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