Opinion ID: 1967178
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: does article 64 violate the taking clause of either the rhode island or federal constitution?

Text: Article 64 does not violate either R.I. Const., art. I, § 16 or U.S. Const., Amend. V, as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. The seniority rights or benefits conferred on eligible veterans by § 30-21-3 are merely gratuities or floating expectancies until actually received by the employee. Nick v. Montana Department of Highways, 711 P.2d 795, 799 (Mont. 1985) (citing Monaco v. United States, 523 F.2d 935, 940 (9th Cir.1975), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 914, 96 S.Ct. 1114, 47 L.Ed.2d 319 (1976)); see also Lynch v. United States, 292 U.S. 571, 577, 54 S.Ct. 840, 842, 78 L.Ed. 1434, 1439 (1934) (pensions, compensation allowances and privileges are gratuities). Because they are gratuities and do not represent private property, their dissolution by the Legislature merits no just compensation. Cf. Richardson v. Belcher, 404 U.S. 78, 81, 92 S.Ct. 254, 257, 30 L.Ed.2d 231, 234 (1971) (the interest of a welfare recipient in the continued payment of benefits is, as a matter of procedural due process, sufficiently fundamental to require a prior evidentiary hearing before termination; however, social-welfare benefits are not synonymous with private property so as to require constitutional limits on a Legislature's ability to change the guidelines for entitlement to those benefits).