Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. v. Darden

Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. v. Darden
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 21, 1992 Decided March 24, 1992
Full case name	Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., et al., Petitioners v. Robert T. Darden
Citations	503 U.S. 318 (more) 112 S. Ct. 1344; 117 L. Ed. 2d 581; 1992 U.S. LEXIS 1949
Case history
Prior	Darden v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 717 F. Supp. 388 (E.D.N.C. 1989); affirmed, 922 F.2d 203 (4th Cir. 1991); cert. granted, 502 U.S. 905 (1991).
Holding
The term "employee" as used in ERISA incorporates traditional agency law criteria for identifying master-servant relationships.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices Byron White · Harry Blackmun John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy David Souter · Clarence Thomas
Case opinion
Majority	Souter, joined by unanimous
Laws applied
Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq.

Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. v. Darden, 503 U.S. 318 (1992), is a US labor law case, concerning the scope of protection for employees, under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). The Court held that principles of agency were relevant to interpreting the concept of "employee".^[1]