ERISA-STANDING

Boley v. Universal Health Servs., 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 15001 (3^rd Cir. June 1, 2022) (Scirica, C.J.)  In this interlocutory appeal, fiduciaries of a retirement plan appeal the District Court’s certification of a class of participants who allege the fiduciaries breached their duty under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”). At issue in this case is whether the typicality requirement of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a) is satisfied when the class representatives did not invest in each of a defined contribution retirement plan’s available investment options. We will affirm. Because the class representatives allege actions or a course of conduct by ERISA fiduciaries that affected multiple funds in the same way, their claims are typical of those of the class. Since the Named Plaintiffs allege concrete injuries traceable to the challenged decisions and courses of conduct of the defendants, they have met the requirements for standing. Article III does not prevent the Named Plaintiffs from representing parties who invested in funds that were allegedly imprudent due to the same decisions or courses of conduct. In Sweda v. University of Pennsylvania we held that participants in a defined contribution ERISA plan have standing to bring claims alleging the fiduciary’s “process of selecting and managing options must have been flawed” even though the class representatives did not invest in every fund. 923 F.3d 320, 331 (3d Cir. 2019). We noted in Sweda that the class representatives alleged they had invested in some of the underperforming funds, and “[t]his allegation links the named plaintiffs with the underperforming investment options and is sufficient to show individual injuries.” Id. at 334 n.10; see also Braden v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 588 F.3d 585, 593 (8th Cir. 2009) (noting that as long as the named plaintiffs have alleged individualized injuries with respect to all of their claims, they “may proceed under § 1132(a)(2) on behalf of the plan or other participants” even if relief “sweeps beyond [their] own injur[ies]”). Indeed, we have held that ERISA “breach of fiduciary duty claims brought under § 502(a)(2) are paradigmatic examples of claims appropriate for certification as a Rule 23(b)(1) class.” Schering Plough, 589 F.3d at 604. Consistent with the basic principles underlying Rule 23(b)(1), certification of an ERISA class as a (b)(1) class is not dependent on the degree of individual proof that will be required for individual plaintiffs to recover, but rather on the recognition that deciding one plaintiff’s claim might mean other plaintiffs might be unable to bring their own claims separately. Id. (holding “it is simply not relevant to the Rule 23(b)(1)(B) inquiry” that plaintiffs’ claims “present individual issues”). Accordingly, Universal’s concerns about the individualized proof that will be required for plaintiffs to recover are not a reason here to prevent certification of a (b)(1) ERISA class that meets the requirements of Rule 23(a).  For these reasons, we will affirm the judgment of the District Court.