Binyamin I. Efreom, et al. v. Daniel McKee, Governor of Rhode Island, et al.

The Petitioners brought their § 1983 suit due to the deprivation of their COLA1 benefits relative to their state and municipal pensions which ensued under the 2015 Rhode Island State and Municipal Pension Reform legislation. The Petitioners had previously sued in a State lawsuit challenging the enactment of the 2012 state and municipal employee pensions reforms. That litigation resulted in a proposed settlement agreement, which both the federal District and Circuit Court acknowledge petitioners did not agree with. Petitioners were assured they would not be forced to agree to the Settlement Agreement and could as other groups did, continue with their litigation. A class action was filed by agreement of the Respondents and other pensioner groups, not Petitioners, where in the Rhode Island Superior Court irrespective of these assurances, the Superior Court subsumed the Petitioners into a binding class depriving them of their rights in derogation of the due process clause. The First Circuit viewed the foregoing factors as nothing more than unsatisfied state court litigants seeking to litigate the State Judgement in Federal Court holding the same barred by the Rooker-Feldman Doctrine. 1.) Whether Petitioners’ procedural due process right and rights to sue for a taking without just compensation under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution and contract 1 Petitioners will refer to their cost of living adjustment to their pension as “COLA.”