Opinion ID: 835784
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Parties and Their Claims

Text: The following is an overview of the parties and their primary contentions, taken from the Special Master's report: Petitioners are current and former public employees who are [Tier One] members of PERS.    Petitioners have named as [respondents] the State of Oregon and certain state agencies (the state), [PERB], and various other public employers (the nonstate [respondents]). Petitioners each assert [under state law] that the 2003 legislation impairs a statutory contract between petitioners and their public employers   , breaches the statutory PERS contract, and takes their property without just compensation   . Some of the petitioners also assert contract impairment and takings claims under the United States Constitution. Petitioners seek to have many of the provisions of the 2003 legislation declared unconstitutional and to enjoin their implementation. Petitioners in the Strunk, Burt, and Evans cases rely, for the sources of their claims, on the PERS statutes that existed before the enactment of the 2003 legislation and certain PERB administrative rules in effect before the legislation's enactment. Petitioners in the Dahlin,    Sartain, and Whitty cases also rely on those provisions and, in addition, assert that the PERS contract consists of other terms, including provisions of employee handbooks, oral representations, or documents that PERS officials have provided to them over the years. Those petitioners' claims allege breaches and impairments of contract and takings based on those additional purported terms. The state has raised several defenses to petitioners' claims. It asserts that (1) the statutory provisions and other materials on which petitioners rely are not part of the obligation of any contract to which they are parties; (2) any impairment of the obligation of petitioners' PERS contracts is insubstantial or nonexistent; (3) any impairment is justified by important public purposes; and (4) petitioners have no property interest that the 2003 legislation affects.    Nonstate [respondents] present a somewhat different array of defenses. Like the state, they first assert that many of the provisions that petitioners seek to enforce are not statutory contractual promises. They also contend that the 2003 legislation did not breach or impair those provisions that constitute statutory contractual promises because it did not change substantially the substance of those promises and, in any event, none of the affected provisions was beyond the reach of the legislature's power of amendment or repeal. They assert that the 2003 legislation has `only prospective effects.' In addition, nonstate [respondents] assert that PERB lacked authority to create binding contractual obligations between themselves and petitioners with respect to PERS benefits. Further, [they] argue that, even if PERB had such authority, the rules and actions on which petitioners rely were unauthorized or contrary to statute, and petitioners have no right to retain the benefits resulting from them. According to nonstate [respondents], the legislature has the exclusive authority to determine PERS benefit levels. Nonstate [respondents] also have raised several affirmative defenses to petitioners' breach of contract claims. Assuming that the legislature intended the statutes, rules, and other materials on which petitioners rely to constitute part of the PERS contract, [they] assert that their performance is excused on the following grounds: (1) mutually mistaken assumptions that PERB would administer the PERS system in a prudent manner to provide benefits in accordance with legislative intent; and (2) impossibility or impracticability based on extreme financial hardship. (Emphasis in original; footnotes omitted.)