Pfeil v. State Street Bank and Trust Co.

Issue: (1) Whether this Court’s decision in Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer affords fiduciaries for employee stock ownership plans (“ESOPs”) per se immunity from fiduciary liability whenever the underlying company stock investment in the ESOP trades in an “efficient market,” no matter how speculative the stock has become or how close the company is to filing bankruptcy; and (2) whether the Employee Retirement Income Securities Act’s duty of prudence requires a plan fiduciary simply to monitor plan investments, or whether it also has a substantive component that requires fiduciaries to remove investments from the plan that are objectively imprudent – i.e., investments that are too risky to hold in a plan based on objective characteristics.