Degan v. Board of Trustees of the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System, No. 18-10423 (5th Cir. 2020)
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Plaintiffs filed suit against the Board over changes to their pension fund, alleging that limiting plaintiffs' ability to withdraw from their Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP) funds constituted an unlawful taking under the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution and violated article XVI, section 66, of the Texas Constitution, which prohibits reducing or otherwise impairing a person’s accrued service retirement benefits.
The Fifth Circuit certified two questions to the Supreme Court of Texas, asking (1) whether the method of withdrawing DROP funds is a service retirement benefit protected under Section 66, and (2) whether the Board's decision to change the withdrawal method for plaintiffs' DROP funds violates Section 66. The Supreme Court of Texas held that (1) although plaintiffs' DROP funds are service retirement benefits protected by Section 66, the method of withdrawing DROP funds is not, and (2) the Board's decision to change the withdrawal method of plaintiffs' DROP accounts did not violate Section 66.
In this case, the court held that plaintiffs failed to state a takings claim because they do not have a property interest in the method of withdrawing DROP funds, and thus the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' takings claim. Furthermore, the court held that plaintiffs failed to plead a regulatory taking claim. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal for failure to state a claim.
This opinion or order relates to an opinion or order originally issued on March 20, 2019.
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