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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports.  Readers are requested to
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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
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No. 90-1802
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NATIONWIDE MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY,
et al., PETITIONERS v. ROBERT T. DARDEN
on writ of certiorari to the united states court
ofappeals for the fourth circuit
                    [March 24, 1992]

  Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court.
  In this case we construe the term ``employee'' as it
appears in 3(6) of the Employee Retirement Income
Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 29 U. S. C. 1002(6), and
read it to incorporate traditional agency law criteria for
identifying master-servant relationships.

                            I
  From 1962 through 1980, respondent Robert Darden
operated an insurance agency according to the terms of
several contracts he signed with petitioners Nationwide
Mutual Insurance Co., et al.  Darden promised to sell only
Nationwide insurance policies, and, in exchange, Nation-
wide agreed to pay him commissions on his sales and enroll
him in a company retirement scheme called the ``Agent's
Security Compensation Plan'' (Plan).  The Plan consisted of
two different programs:  the ``Deferred Compensation
Incentive Credit Plan,'' under which Nationwide annually
credited an agent's retirement account with a sum based on
his business performance, and the ``Extended Earnings
Plan,'' under which Nationwide paid an agent, upon
retirement or termination, a sum equal to the total of his
policy renewal fees for the previous 12 months.
  Such were the contractual terms, however, that Darden
would forfeit his entitlement to the Plan's benefits if, within
a year of his termination and 25 miles of his prior business
location, he sold insurance for Nationwide's competitors.
The contracts also disqualified him from receiving those
benefits if, after he stopped representing Nationwide, he
ever induced a Nationwide policyholder to cancel one of its
policies.
  In November 1980, Nationwide exercised its contractual
right to end its relationship with Darden.  A month later,
Darden became an independent insurance agent and, doing
business from his old office, sold insurance policies for
several of Nationwide's competitors.  The company reacted
with the charge that his new business activities disqualified
him from receiving the Plan benefits to which he would
have been entitled otherwise.  Darden then sued for the
benefits, which he claimed were nonforfeitable because
already vested under the terms of ERISA.  29 U. S. C.
1053(a).
  Darden brought his action under 29 U. S. C. 1132(a),
which enables a benefit plan ``participant'' to enforce the
substantive provisions of ERISA.  The Act elsewhere defines
``participant'' as ``any employee or former employee of an
employer . . . who is or may become eligible to receive a
benefit of any type from an employee benefit plan . . . .''
1002(7).  Thus, Darden's ERISA claim can succeed only if
he was Nationwide's ``employee,'' a term the Act defines as
``any individual employed by an employer.''  1002(6).
  It was on this point that the District Court granted
summary judgment to Nationwide.  After applying common-
law agency principles and, to an extent unspecified, our
decision in United States v. Silk, 331 U. S. 704 (1947), the
court found that ```the total factual context' of Mr. Darden's
relationship with Nationwide shows that he was an
independent contractor and not an employee.''  District
Court Order of May 23, 1985, reprinted at Pet. for Cert.
47a, 50a, quoting NLRB v. United Ins. Co. of America, 390
U. S. 254 (1968).
  The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
reversed.  Darden v. Nationwide Mutual Ins. Co., 796 F. 2d
701 (1986) (Darden I).  After observing that ``Darden most
probably would not qualify as an employee'' under tradition-
al principles of agency law, id., at 705, it found the tradi-
tional definition inconsistent with the ```declared policy and
purposes''' of ERISA, id., at 706, quoting Silk, supra, at
713, and NLRB v. Hearst Publications, Inc., 322 U. S. 111,
131-132 (1944), and specifically with the congressional
statement of purpose found in  2 of the Act, 29 U. S. C.
1001.  It therefore held that an ERISA plaintiff can
qualify as an ``employee'' simply by showing ``(1) that he had
a reasonable expectation that he would receive [pension]
benefits, (2) that he relied on this expectation, and (3) that
he lacked the economic bargaining power to contract out of
[benefit plan] forfeiture provisions.''  Darden v. Nationwide
Mutual Ins. Co., 922 F. 2d 203, 205 (CA4 1991) (Darden II)
(summarizing Darden I).  The court remanded the case to
the District Court, which then found that Darden had been
Nationwide's ``employee'' under the standard set by the
Court of Appeals.  Darden v. Nationwide Mutual Ins. Co.,
717 F. Supp. 388 (EDNC 1989).  The Court of Appeals
affirmed.  Darden II, supra.
  In due course, Nationwide filed a petition for certiorari,
which we granted on October 15, 1991.  502 U. S. ___
(1991).  We now reverse.
                           II
  We have often been asked to construe the meaning of
``employee'' where the statute containing the term does not
helpfully define it.  Most recently we confronted this
problem in Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid,
490 U. S. 730 (1989), a case in which a sculptor and a
nonprofit group each claimed copyright ownership in a
statue the group had commissioned from the artist.  The
dispute ultimately turned on whether, by the terms of  101
of the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U. S. C. 101, the statue
had been ``prepared by an employee within the scope of his
or her employment.''  Because the Copyright Act nowhere
defined the term ``employee,'' we unanimously applied the
``well established'' principle that
    ``[w]here Congress uses terms that have accumulated
    settled meaning under . . . the common law, a court
    must infer, unless the statute otherwise dictates, that
    Congress means to incorporate the established meaning
    of these terms. . . . In the past, when Congress has
    used the term `employee' without defining it, we have
    concluded that Congress intended to describe the
    conventional master-servant relationship as understood
    by common-law agency doctrine.  See, e. g., Kelley v.
    Southern Pacific Co., 419 U. S. 318, 322-323 (1974);
    Baker v. Texas & Pacific R. Co., 359 U. S. 227, 228
    (1959) (per curiam); Robinson v. Baltimore & Ohio R.
    Co., 237 U. S. 84, 94 (1915).''  490 U. S., at 739-740
    (internal quotations omitted).
While we supported this reading of the Copyright Act with
other observations, the general rule stood as independent
authority for the decision.
  So too should it stand here.  ERISA's nominal definition
of ``employee'' as ``any individual employed by an employer,''
29 U. S. C. 1002(6), is completely circular and explains
nothing.  As for the rest of the Act, Darden does not cite,
and we do not find, any provision either giving specific
guidance on the term's meaning or suggesting that constru-
ing it to incorporate traditional agency law principles would
thwart the congressional design or lead to absurd results.
Thus, we adopt a common-law test for determining who
qualifies as an ``employee'' under ERISA, a test we most
recently summarized in Reid:
    ``In determining whether a hired party is an employee
    under the general common law of agency, we consider
    the hiring party's right to control the manner and
    means by which the product is accomplished.  Among
    the other factors relevant to this inquiry are the skill
    required; the source of the instrumentalities and tools;
    the location of the work; the duration of the relation-
    ship between the parties; whether the hiring party has
    the right to assign additional projects to the hired
    party; the extent of the hired party's discretion over
    when and how long to work; the method of payment;
    the hired party's role in hiring and paying assistants;
    whether the work is part of the regular business of the
    hiring party; whether the hiring party is in business;
    the provision of employee benefits; and the tax treat-
    ment of the hired party.''  490 U. S., at 751-752 (foot-
    notes omitted).
Cf. Restatement (Second) of Agency 220(2) (1958) (listing
nonexhaustive criteria for identifying master-servant re-
lationship); Rev. Rul. 87-41, 1987-1 Cum. Bull. 296, 298-299
(setting forth twenty factors as guides in determining
whether an individual qualifies as a common-law ``em-
ployee'' in various tax law contexts).  Since the common-law
test contains ``no shorthand formula or magic phrase that
can be applied to find the answer, . . . all of the incidents of
the relationship must be assessed and weighed with no one
factor being decisive.''  NLRB v. United Ins. Co. of America,
390 U. S., at 258.
  In taking its different tack, the Court of Appeals cited
NLRB v. Hearst Publications, Inc., 322 U. S., at 120-129,
and United States v. Silk, 331 U. S., at 713, for the proposi-
tion that ``the content of the term `employee' in the context
of a particular federal statute is `to be construed ``in the
light of the mischief to be corrected and the end to be
attained.'''''  Darden I, 796 F. 2d, at 706, quoting Silk,
supra, at 713, in turn quoting Hearst, supra, at 124.  But
Hearst and Silk, which interpreted ``employee'' for purposes
of the National Labor Relations Act and Social Security Act,
respectively, are feeble precedents for unmooring the term
from the common law.  In each case, the Court read
``employee,'' which neither statute helpfully defined, to
imply something broader than the common-law definition;
after each opinion, Congress amended the statute so
construed to demonstrate that the usual common-law
principles were the keys to meaning.  See United Ins. Co.,
390 U. S., at 256 (``Congressional reaction to [Hearst] was
adverse and Congress passed an amendment . . . . [t]he
obvious purpose of [which] was to have the . . . courts apply
general agency principles in distinguishing between
employees and independent contractors under the Act'');
Social Security Act of 1948, ch. 468, 1(a), 62 Stat. 438
(1948) (amending statute to provide that term ``employee''
``does not include . . . any individual who, under the usual
common-law rules applicable in determining the employer-
employee relationship, has the status of an independent
contractor'') (emphasis added); see also United States v.
W. M. Webb, Inc., 397 U. S. 179, 183-188 (1970) (discussing
congressional reaction to Silk).
  To be sure, Congress did not, strictly speaking, ``overrule''
our interpretation of those statutes, since the Constitution
invests the Judiciary, not the Legislature, with the final
power to construe the law.  But a principle of statutory
construction can endure just so many legislative revisita-
tions, and Reid's presumption that Congress means an
agency law definition for ``employee'' unless it clearly
indicates otherwise signaled our abandonment of Silk's
emphasis on construing that term ```in the light of the
mischief to be corrected and the end to be attained.'''  Silk,
supra, at 713, quoting Hearst, supra, at 124.
  At oral argument, Darden tried to subordinate Reid to
Rutherford Food Corp. v. McComb, 331 U. S. 722 (1947),
which adopted a broad reading of ``employee'' under the Fair
Labor Standards Act (FLSA).  And amicus United States,
while rejecting Darden's position, also relied on Rutherford
Food for the proposition that, when enacting ERISA,
Congress must have intended a modified common-law
definition of ``employee'' that would advance, in a way not
defined, the Act's ``remedial purposes.''  Brief for United
States as Amicus Curiae 15-21.  But Rutherfood Food
supports neither position.  The definition of ``employee'' in
the FLSA evidently derives from the child labor statutes,
see Rutherford Food, supra, at 728, and, on its face, goes
beyond its ERISA counterpart.  While the FLSA, like
ERISA, defines an ``employee'' to include ``any individual
employed by an employer,'' it defines the verb ``employ''
expansively to mean ``suffer or permit to work.''  52 Stat.
1060, 3, codified at 29 U. S. C. 203(e), (g).  This latter
definition, whose striking breadth we have previously
noted, Rutherford Food, supra, at 728, stretches the mean-
ing of ``employee'' to cover some parties who might not
qualify as such under a strict application of traditional
agency law principles.  ERISA lacks any such provision,
however, and the textual asymmetry between the two
statutes precludes reliance on FLSA cases when construing
ERISA's concept of ``employee.''
  Quite apart from its inconsistency with our precedents,
the Fourth Circuit's analysis reveals an approach infected
with circularity and unable to furnish predictable results.
Applying the first element of its test, which ostensibly
enquires into an employee's ``expectations,'' the Court of
Appeals concluded that Nationwide had ``created a reason-
able expectation on the `employees'' part that benefits
would be paid to them in the future,'' Darden I, 796 F. 2d,
at 706, by establishing ``a comprehensive retirement
benefits program for its insurance agents,'' id., at 707.  The
court thought it was simply irrelevant that the forfeiture
clause in Darden's contract ``limited'' his expectation of
receiving pension benefits, since ``it is precisely that sort of
employer-imposed condition on the employee's anticipations
that Congress intended to outlaw with the enactment of
ERISA.''  Id., at 707, n. 7 (emphasis added).  Thus, the
Fourth Circuit's test would turn not on a claimant's actual
``expectations,'' which the court effectively deemed inconse-
quential, ibid., but on his statutory entitlement to relief,
which itself depends on his very status as an ``employee.''
This begs the question.
  This circularity infects the test's second prong as well,
which considers the extent to which a claimant has relied
on his ``expectation'' of benefits by ``remaining for `long
years,' or a substantial period of time, in the `employer's'
service, and by foregoing other significant means of provid-
ing for [his] retirement.''  Id., at 706.  While this enquiry is
ostensibly factual, we have seen already that one of its
objects may not be:  to the extent that actual ``expectations''
are (as in Darden's case) unnecessary to relief, the nature
of a claimant's required ``reliance'' is left unclear.  Moreover,
any enquiry into ``reliance,'' whatever it might entail, could
apparently lead to different results for claimants holding
identical jobs and enrolled in identical plans.  Because, for
example, Darden failed to make much independent provi-
sion for his retirement, he satisfied the ``reliance'' prong of
the Fourth Circuit's test, see Darden II, 922 F. 2d, at 206,
whereas a more provident colleague who signed exactly the
same contracts, but saved for a rainy day, might not.
  Any such approach would severely compromise the
capacity of companies like Nationwide to figure out who
their ``employees'' are and what, by extension, their pension-
fund obligations will be.  To be sure, the traditional agency
law criteria offer no paradigm of determinacy.  But their
application generally turns on factual variables within an
employer's knowledge, thus permitting categorical judg-
ments about the ``employee'' status of claimants with
similar job descriptions.  Agency law principles comport,
moreover, with our recent precedents and with the common
understanding, reflected in those precedents, of the differ-
ence between an employee and an independent contractor.

                           III
  While the Court of Appeals noted that ``Darden most
probably would not qualify as an employee'' under tradition-
al agency law principles, Darden I, supra, at 705, it did not
actually decide that issue.  We therefore reverse and
remand the case to that court for proceedings consistent
with this opinion.
So ordered.