The Mass Decision: Clarification on Fiduciary Duties in Retirement Systems
In late October 2025, the First District Court of Appeal announced its unanimous decision in Mass v. The Regents of the University of California, an important decision clarifying the extent to which retirement systems are—and are not—required to advise their members on the effects of various plan terms.
The Mass Decision
The Mass plaintiffs are a class of former employees of the Regents of the University of California (the Regents). As a result of their employment, they were members of the University of California Retirement Plan, which calculates retirement allowances based, in part, on an age factor. (All else equal, a higher age factor yields a higher retirement allowance.) The plaintiff class comprised former employees who left the Regents’ employ before turning 60, which was the maximum age factor for them under their plan, but did not retire from the Plan until after they had turned 60.
The plaintiffs alleged that they had lost significant retirement allowance income as a result of not retiring upon turning 60, and they sued the Regents under two theories. First, the plaintiffs argued that the Plan terms entitled them to retroactive benefit payments, i.e., benefits as if they had in fact retired at 60. The trial court rejected this theory on summary adjudication, and the court of appeal affirmed. The court of appeal concluded that the plain terms of the Plan allowed only for the payment of benefits upon application and thus did not permit the retroactive payments sought by the plaintiffs. The court of appeal reasoned that reading the Plan’s terms to allow for retroactive retirements could have adverse consequences, e.g., large groups of members may simultaneously elect for retroactive retirements during adverse market conditions, which could tax the Plan’s resources.
Second, the plaintiffs argued that the Regents had breached its fiduciary duties by failing to inform members that they could miss out on retirement benefits by not retiring at 60 because the Regents does not permit retroactive retirements. This claim rested primarily on the plaintiffs’ reading of Hittle v. Santa Barbara County Employees Retirement Assn. (1985) 39 Cal.3d 374, which held that retirement systems’ fiduciary duties include a duty to “fully and fairly” inform members of their retirement plans’ terms. The trial court rejected this argument after a bench trial, reasoning that the Regents did not have a duty to inform members that they could not retire retroactively because nothing in the Plan’s terms or the Regents’ communications with the plaintiffs had ever suggested that the plaintiffs had such a right. In addition, the court addressed several scenarios, such a reciprocal system membership or reemployment by the Regents, that could result in a member increasing their benefit entitlements even after age 60 notwithstanding the age factor. The court of appeal affirmed the trial court on each of these points.
Takeaways from the Mass Decision
The Mass decision reiterates a key point from Hittle: member communications matter. The Supreme Court in Hittle found that the system’s communications with a member were opaque and confusing as to his retirement rights, and held that the failure to “fully and fairly” inform the member of his rights violated the system’s fiduciary duties. In Mass, however, the court of appeal concluded that the Regents had never communicated with members in a way that would reasonably create any confusion over the availability of retroactive retirement rights, and thus did not have a fiduciary duty to dispel such confusion.
The Mass decision also held, importantly, that retirement systems’ fiduciary duties to their members do not mean that systems have a duty to maximize each member’s benefits. That is, systems are not under any obligation to provide a member bespoke advice that will maximize their retirement allowance in light of their own particular circumstances. Indeed, the court noted that a number of factors unique to particular persons could affect their personal retirement timing. The Mass decision affirmed the Supreme Court’s observation in Hittle that comprehensive (full) and accurate (fair) communications in written materials provided by a public retirement system regarding benefit rights should suffice.
Ashley Dunning, co-chair of Nossaman’s Pensions, Benefits & Investments (PB&I) Group, was an expert witness on fiduciary issues for the Regents at trial.
