In 2014, Congress created a process for solvent, private pension plans to rewrite the binding agreements that govern their obligations to pay money to retirees, widows, and widowers. To reduce these vested pension rights, pension plans needed government approval. Petitioners' pension plan sought and obtained this authorization. The plan's trustees then rewrote the agreement under which Petitioners had earned a pension. This rewriting of the agreement lowered each Petitioner's vested pension payment by more than $1,000 per month.

Lower courts are divided over the legal standard that determines whether a government violates the Takings Clause when it effects an appropriation of monetary rights. Prior to the decision below, the D.C. Circuit, Eleventh Circuit, and the highest state court in Massachusetts had held that a per se takings rule applies to seizures of monetary rights as long as the right to payment is "linked to a specific, identifiable property interest." By contrast, the Ninth Circuit, Sixth Circuit, and the highest state court in Michigan had taken the narrower view that a per se rule applies to alleged takings of monetary rights only if the money in question is drawn from a "specific fund." Below, the Federal Circuit created an even-stricter, entirely novel, third test: It held that a per se takings rule applies only when the party asserting a taking of a monetary right also has a property interest in the "underlying assets" that will be used to pay the amount owed.

Under the Takings Clause, does a per se rule apply when a government authorizes one private party to appropriate another party's vested right to payment of money?

Under the Takings Clause, does a per se rule apply when a government authorizes one private party to appropriate another party's vested right to payment of money?