538
Thomas, J., dissenting
at 43. The Court thus holds today that an employer breaches a fiduciary obligation to participants in an ERISA plan when it makes optimistic statements about the company's financial condition and thereby implies that unvested welfare benefits will be secure, even though the employer simultaneously informs plan participants that changes will be made if economic conditions so require and the plan documents expressly authorize the employer to terminate the un-vested welfare benefits at any time. I cannot agree with this result.
III
I do not read the Court's opinion to extend fiduciary liability to all instances in which the Court's rationale would logically apply. Indeed, the Court's awkward articulation of its holding confirms that this case is quite limited. See ante, at 503 ("We conclude . . . that the factual context in which the statements were made, combined with the plan-related nature of the activity, engaged in by those who had plan-related authority to do so, together provide sufficient support for the District Court's legal conclusion that Varity was acting as a fiduciary"); ante, at 505 ("[W]e hold that making intentional representations about the future of plan benefits in that context is an act of plan administration") (emphasis added).
If not limited to cases involving facts similar to those presented in this case, the Court's expansion of recovery for fiduciary breach to individuals and its substantial broadening of the definition of fiduciary will undermine the careful balance Congress struck in enacting ERISA. See Pilot Life Ins. Co. v. Dedeaux, 481 U. S., at 54 (ERISA's "civil enforcement scheme . . . represents a careful balancing of the need for prompt and fair claims settlement procedures against the public interest in encouraging the formation of employee benefit plans"); Mertens, 508 U. S., at 262-263. Although Congress sought to guarantee that employees receive the welfare benefits promised by employers, Congress was also
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