At the end of the 2019-2020 term, the Court issued opinions in Thole et al. v. U.S. Bank N.A. et al., 140 S. Ct. 1615 (2020) and Barr v. Am. Ass’n of Political Consultants, Inc., 140 S. Ct. 2335 (2020). In Thole, the Court addressed whether a putative class of plaintiffs had Article III standing to bring claims against their former employer and other defendants under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). The plaintiffs argued that defendants breached the duties of loyalty and prudence under ERISA by poorly investing the assets of their defined-benefit retirement plan. In a defined-benefit retirement plan, retirees receive a fixed payment each month, and the payments do not fluctuate with the value of the plan or based on investment decisions by plan fiduciaries. The Court drew a distinction between these plans and defined-contribution plans, like 401(k)s, where the benefits are tied to the value of the accounts and can turn on plan fiduciaries’ investment decisions. The Court affirmed the lower Court’s dismissal because the plaintiffs lacked Article III standing, specifically noting that regardless of the outcome of the case, the plaintiffs would still receive the exact same monthly benefits they are already entitled to receive.
In Barr v. Am. Ass’n of Political Consultants, the Court addressed a challenge to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which prohibits the use of robocalls to cellular and residential telephone lines.
Congress amended the TCPA in 2015 to permit robocalls to cell phones made for the sole purpose of collecting a debt owed to or guaranteed by the federal government. The plaintiffs in this case, political and polling organizations, brought a declaratory judgment action alleging that the federal-backed debt exemption violated the Free Speech clause because it did not allow other types of calls to be made. Plaintiffs asked the Court to strike down the entire TCPA, thereby allowing the plaintiff organizations to make robocalls related to political and other non-debt issues.
The Supreme Court affirmed the Fourth Circuit’s ruling and found that the debt-collection exception to the TCPA’s robocall restriction impermissibly favored debt-collection speech over political and other speech in violation of the First Amendment. Rather than invalidating the entire TCPA, however, the Court, applying the doctrine of severability found that the debt-collection exception was invalid and severed it from the remainder of the statute.
The Court’s opinion noted that the TCPA “imposes...
