Although the court declined to award damages to the plaintiffs in the latest round of Tussey v. ABB Inc. that fiduciaries "abused their discretion" in mapping retirement funds from the Vanguard Worthington Fund to the Fidelity Freedom Funds, that doesn't mean that fiduciaries are home free on bad decisions.

While Judge Nanette Laughrey was convinced that ABB breached ERISA's self-dealing provisions in switching out the funds, she said that the "plaintiffs failed to prove damages consistent with the method of damage calculation suggested by the 8^th Circuit."

But you can bet that every future case of this nature will see a lot more time and attention devoted to that particular issue by any future claimants.