ERISA is the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, the main U.S. federal law that sets minimum standards for most employer‑sponsored retirement and other benefit plans in the private sector. It regulates how these plans are designed and run, including when workers can join, how benefits are earned and funded, what information must be disclosed, and the fiduciary duties of those managing plan assets, and it gives participants the right to sue for benefits and breaches of duty.
A petition for certiorari is a formal request asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review and possibly change a lower court’s decision. When the party who filed it withdraws the petition (or the case is voluntarily dismissed under Supreme Court Rule 46), the Supreme Court does not review the case and the lower court’s judgment remains in place, effectively ending further appeals in that case.
In ERISA cases, “loss causation” means showing that a plan fiduciary’s alleged wrongdoing actually caused a financial loss to the retirement plan. It matters because courts treat this as an essential element of an ERISA breach‑of‑fiduciary‑duty damages claim, and in Pizarro v. Home Depot the Eleventh Circuit held that the plaintiffs—not the defendants—must prove that link, which is the burden‑of‑proof rule the Labor Department supported in its amicus filing.
An amicus brief is a written submission to a court by someone who is not a party to the case (an “amicus curiae” or “friend of the court”) offering additional legal arguments, expertise, or information to help the judges decide. The Department of Labor, which enforces and interprets ERISA, filed an amicus brief in Pizarro to tell the Supreme Court how it believes ERISA’s loss‑causation rules should work nationwide and to argue against a legal theory it thought would expand fiduciary liability and litigation.
Under ERISA, a “plan sponsor” is usually the employer (or sometimes a union or group of employers) that sets up and maintains an employee benefit plan—in a 401(k) case like this, Home Depot is the plan sponsor. If ERISA liability were broadened by easing plaintiffs’ burden on loss causation, plan sponsors could face more lawsuits, higher legal and insurance costs, and greater risk in offering retirement plans, which is why the Labor Department argued against the plaintiffs’ theory in this case.
The Home Depot FutureBuilder 401(k) plan is Home Depot’s tax‑advantaged, defined contribution retirement savings plan that lets eligible employees contribute part of their pay, typically with company matching contributions, to build an individual retirement account. Participants are Home Depot associates (and, if they keep assets in the plan, some former employees) who enroll in the plan, which is administered through providers such as Alight Solutions and is one of the employer‑sponsored 401(k) plans governed by ERISA.