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?

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 rewr ote the agreement under which Petitioners had earned a pension . This rewriting of the agreement lower ed 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 gover nment violate s the Takings Clause when it effect s 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 taking s rule applies to seizures of mone tary rights as long as the right to payment is “linked to a specific, identifiable property interest. ” By co ntrast, 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 Fede ral Circuit creat ed an even -stricter, entirely novel, third test: It held that a per se taking s 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, d oes a per se rule apply when a government authorizes one private party to appropriate another party’s vested right to payment of money ? i LIST OF ALL PARTIES The parties to the judgment from which re view is sought are Petitioners William King, Stephen Dardzinski, and the Estate of Anthony Gugliuzza , on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated. On August 29, 2022, t he Court of Federal Claims certified the following class pursuant to RCF C 23: Any person (whether a participant, beneficiary, or other individual) who received one or more pension payments from the New York State Teamsters Conference Pension and Retirement Fund (the “Fund”) on or after October 1, 2017 unless either (1) that pe rson was an “Active Participant” as of October 1, 2017 or (2) all pension payments that were received by that person since October 1, 2017 were reduced by 0% relative to the sum the recipient would have been entitled to receive if the Defendant had not aut horized the Fund, in or around September 2017, to reduce certain pension benefits under the Kline -Miller Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014. Although the class was certified, the court deferred the class opt -in process until summary judgment was resolved, and the case was dismissed before that process took place. Respondent is the United States. ii