Law of Directed Trustees under ERISA: A Proposed Blueprint for the Federal Courts, The

Congress enacted the Employee Retirement Income Security Act ("ERISA"), the federal law governing private employer-sponsored employee benefit plans, over twenty years ago. Since that time, private retirement plan funds have become an even more dominant element of United States savings and capital markets. In 1992, the most recent year for which data is available, private retirement plan assets exceeded two trillion dollars, almost a ten-fold increase over 1975 asset levels. "Discretionary" trustees have exclusive discretionary authority to manage and control plan assets.' "Directed" trustees manage and control plan assets subject to the directions of another fiduciary named in the document governing the plan.

This article analyzes the law of directed trustees under ERISA, a subject that has received very little attention in scholarly literature.