600
Stevens, J., concurring in judgment
however, is the one that the Court reaches out to answer today. We unequivocally stated:
"It is, of course, clear that compliance with the specific standards of § 302(c)(5) in the administration of welfare funds is enforceable in federal district courts under § 302(e) of the LMRA." Ibid.7
The Court now seems to assume that it is confronted with a choice between "establishing an entire body of federal trust law," ante, at 590, on the one hand, and limiting the scope of § 302(e) to injunctions against the making or acceptance of prohibited payments, on the other. As Robinson makes clear, however, there is no need to go so far in either direction; our understanding that § 302(e) provides a remedy for violations of § 302(c)(5)'s specific standards is independent of any view as to whether § 302(e) makes general fiduciary duties enforceable in federal court.
ers, supra, that the only violations "within the federal courts' authority involved the failure to meet the specific requirements of Section 302(c)(5)." Brief for Petitioners 12 (emphasis in original). Nor do petitioners ever argue that § 302(c)(5)'s "exclusive benefit" obligation is satisfied finally at the time of trust establishment; rather, petitioners understand § 302(c)(5) to require that a trust "(1) use employer contributions only for specified types of benefits; (2) use those assets only for benefits for employees and families of the contributing employer and the employees and families of other contributing employers . . . ." Id., at 8 (emphasis added).
7 Had this basic proposition been challenged in Robinson—and had the Court as then constituted found any merit in the challenge—then it would have been unnecessary to go on to decide whether the discrimination in that case violated § 302(c)(5) as "unreasonable." In other words, this proposition provided the framework for all of the reasoning in Robinson, just as it provided the framework for all of our post-Arroyo cases under this statute. Whether or not the label "dicta," see ante, at 592, n. 5, is appropriately applied to such a proposition, our statement in Robinson represented an interpretation of an important federal statute that had been accepted uniformly by the bar, the judiciary, and the Congress for over three decades, since Arroyo was decided in 1959. The Court today simply ignores the interest in adhering to settled rules of law that under-girds the doctrines of stare decisis and judicial restraint.
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