Case: William King, Individually and on Behalf of Others Similarly Situated as a Class, et al. v. United States, No. 25-856
Lower Court: Federal Circuit
Docketed: 2026-01-20
Status: Pending
Question Presented: 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 paym...
On February 19, 2026, six amicus briefs were filed in support of the petition, including submissions from the Pension Rights Center, Professor Richard Epstein, and Professor Samantha J. Prince. The breadth of that amicus activity, spanning pension advocacy groups and academic property rights scholars, signals that the legal community regards the question presented as genuinely unsettled and consequential for a large class of retirees. The Supreme Court docket reflects that the government has since sought two extensions to file its response, with the deadline now set for April 22, 2026.
The underlying dispute arises from a 2014 law that permitted solvent, private pension plans to reduce vested benefits with government approval. Petitioners’ plan obtained that approval and cut monthly payments by more than $1,000 per retiree. Petitioners brought a Takings Clause claim, arguing the government-sanctioned reduction constituted a compensable appropriation of a vested property right. The Federal Circuit rejected that claim under a novel standard requiring petitioners to hold a property interest in the “underlying assets” from which payment would be drawn.
That ruling deepened an existing circuit conflict. The D.C. and Eleventh Circuits, along with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, apply a per se takings rule to monetary rights “linked to a specific, identifiable property interest.” The Ninth and Sixth Circuits require the money to come from a “specific fund.” The Federal Circuit’s “underlying assets” test is stricter still. The government’s extension requests suggest it is taking the petition seriously rather than filing a quick waiver. Petitioner is represented by Noah A. Messing, with Solicitor General D. John Sauer appearing for the respondent.
The case presents the Court with a clean vehicle to define when government authorization of private contract modification crosses into a compensable taking of monetary rights. Readers can track filings through the CourtListener docket. The April response deadline will be the next meaningful indicator of whether the government contests certiorari or concedes the split warrants resolution.