29 U.S.C. § 1109
Section 1109 · Liability for breach of fiduciary duty
This is § 409 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 1,358 court decisions — leading case Pilot Life Insurance v. Dedeaux (1987)
Most recently applied in Winston Anderson v. Intel Corporation Investment Policy Committee (May 2025)
Applied most in the Ninth Circuit Circuit (84 decisions)
Cases citing this section usually also cite 29 U.S.C. § 1132 · 29 U.S.C. § 1002 · 29 U.S.C. § 1104
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) Any person who is a fiduciary with respect to a plan who breaches any of the responsibilities, obligations, or duties imposed upon fiduciaries by this subchapter shall be personally liable to make good to such plan any losses to the plan resulting from each such breach, and to restore to such plan any profits of such fiduciary which have been made through use of assets of the plan by the fiduciary, and shall be subject to such other equitable or remedial relief as the court may deem appropriate, including removal of such fiduciary. A fiduciary may also be removed for a violation of section 1111 of this title.
(b) No fiduciary shall be liable with respect to a breach of fiduciary duty under this subchapter if such breach was committed before he became a fiduciary or after he ceased to be a fiduciary.