Cite as: 516 U. S. 489 (1996)
Opinion of the Court
the same common-law trust doctrines that govern standards of fiduciary conduct. See Restatement (Second) of Trusts § 187 ("Where discretion is conferred upon the trustee with respect to the exercise of a power, its exercise is not subject to control by the court, except to prevent an abuse by the trustee of his discretion") (as quoted in Firestone, 489 U. S., at 111).
Third, the statute authorizes "appropriate" equitable relief. We should expect that courts, in fashioning "appropriate" equitable relief, will keep in mind the "special nature and purpose of employee benefit plans," and will respect the "policy choices reflected in the inclusion of certain remedies and the exclusion of others." Pilot Life Ins. Co., 481 U. S., at 54. See also Russell, 473 U. S., at 147; Mertens, 508 U. S., at 263-264. Thus, we should expect that where Congress elsewhere provided adequate relief for a beneficiary's injury, there will likely be no need for further equitable relief, in which case such relief normally would not be "appropriate." Cf. Russell, supra, at 144.
But that is not the case here. The plaintiffs in this case could not proceed under the first subsection because they were no longer members of the Massey-Ferguson plan and, therefore, had no "benefits due [them] under the terms of [the] plan." § 502(a)(1)(B). They could not proceed under the second subsection because that provision, tied to § 409, does not provide a remedy for individual beneficiaries. Russell, supra, at 144. They must rely on the third subsection or they have no remedy at all. We are not aware of any ERISA-related purpose that denial of a remedy would serve. Rather, we believe that granting a remedy is consistent with the literal language of the statute, the Act's purposes, and pre-existing trust law.
For these reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
515
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