Cite as: 516 U. S. 489 (1996)
Opinion of the Court
table or remedial relief as the court may deem appropriate, including removal of such fiduciary. . . ." (Emphasis added.)
Step Three: In Massachusetts Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Russell, 473 U. S. 134 (1985), this Court pointed to the above-italicized language in § 409 and concluded that this section (and its companion remedial provision, subsection (2)) did not authorize the plaintiff's suit for compensatory and punitive damages against an administrator who had wrongfully delayed payment of her benefit claim. The first two italicized phrases, the Court said, show that § 409's "draftsmen were primarily concerned with the possible misuse of plan assets, and with remedies that would protect the entire plan, rather than with the rights of an individual beneficiary." Id., at 142 (emphasis added). The Court added that, in this context, the last italicized phrase ("other equitable or remedial relief") does not "authorize any relief except for the plan itself." Id., at 144.
Step Four: In light of Russell, as well as ERISA's language, structure, and purposes, one cannot read the third subsection (the subsection before us) as including (as "appropriate") the very kind of action—an action for individual, rather than plan, relief—that this Court found Congress excluded in subsection (2). It is at this point, however, that we must disagree with Varity. We have reexamined Russell, as well as the relevant statutory language, structure, and purpose. And, in our view, they support the beneficiaries' view of the statute, not Varity's.
First, Russell discusses § 502(a)'s second subsection, not its third subsection, and the language that the Court found limiting appears in a statutory section (§ 409) that the second subsection, not the third, cross-references. Russell's plaintiff expressly disavowed reliance on the third subsection, id., at 139, n. 5, perhaps because she was seeking compensatory and punitive damages and subsection (3) authorizes only "equitable" relief. See Mertens, 508 U. S., at 255, 256-258, and
509
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