U.S. Supreme Court to decide right to sue for mishandling 401(k) plans.

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether a federal pension law gives workers who participate in 401(k) plans the right to sue claiming their accounts were mishandled.
The justices on Monday agreed to hear arguments from a man who says his retirement account is $150,000 short because the consulting firm that employed him didn't make investment changes he requested. A federal appeals court barred the suit.
The case will shape the rights of participants in "defined contribution" plans, a category that also includes employee stock ownership and profit-sharing plans. Together, those plans hold more than $3.2 trillion in U.S. employee assets.
The case before the court concerns James LaRue, who says his employer, management-consulting firm DeWolff Boberg & Associates, didn't follow his investment instructions in 2001 and 2002. He sued the firm, the administrator of the plan, in 2004 in federal court in Charleston, S.C. The suit invokes the 1974 Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., said the pension law allows suits for damages only when a participant is seeking to vindicate the rights of a plan "as a whole," not just the interests of a single account.
DeWolff Boberg urged the Supreme Court not to hear the case, saying the appeals court correctly applied a 1985 Supreme Court ruling.