Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that could cause a deluge of 401(k) lawsuits.

The court ruled to allow employees who lose money in their 401(k) or similar retirement plans to sue their employers if the money loss occurred due to uncorrected administrative errors or intentional misconduct by the plan managers.

In plain English, the court ruled that employers are expected to manage employees 401(k) money with the same care they’d take to protect their own money. In some cases, this means protecting the security of employees’ retirement funds even if it comes at the financial expense of the company itself.

The biggest change the Supreme Court ruling brings about is that now individual employees can sue employers over 401(k)s that go bad. In the past, employees could file class-action suits against their employers, but could not sue as individuals

Legal experts predict a flood of lawsuits in the near future. Here are three common issues that employee lawyers could target:

• High-fee mutual funds. If your 401(k) offers a collection of mutual funds thatre largely more expensive to buy, yet consistently perform below lower-fee funds, the firm could be liable under ERISA if the problem isn’t corrected.

• Undisclosed financial relationships. ERISA requires plan fiduciaries to inform participants of any financial benefits gained from their contributions to the 401(k) plan investments. Where this gets tricky: Sometimes 401(k) vendors name third-party trustees. Such arrangements appear in the fine print of service contracts. Under ERISA, its up to you as plan sponsor to make a good-faith effort to learn about any outside partys relationship to the vendor and see if potential kickbacks could influence investment choices and returns.

• Over-investment in company stock. Firms are vulnerable when 401(k) matches are paid in company stock or similar options that holders cant sell for a specified length of time. Reason: Such arrangements make trustees responsible for stepping in and preventing catastrophic losses to participants.

The unavoidable ups and downs of the market are NOT a legit reason for a lawsuit. However, plan sponsors can’t simply let employees’ accounts tank without reviewing the performance of the plan and exploring viable options.