That's what the entire legal process feels like right now. Seems that the Supreme Court checked the box, "no legal fees", when they issued their Strunk decision. So the various parties that "won" pieces of the decision - the PERS Coalition on the 8% "guarantee, OPRI on the "COLA freeze" (or whatever you want to call it) - were expected to eat their own legal expenses. With 3 defendants and 7 plaintiffs who won something in the case, the legal fees incurred by the 7 plaintiffs were pretty high - $300,000 for OPRI alone. If every plaintiff sued every defendent for legal fees, there'd be 21 legal cases to sort through. Apparently, some kind of legal action is in the wind and many petitions have been filed with the Supreme Court concering fee recovery. The Court will have to rule on those various petitions before anyone collects a dime, if that. The court can say yes, no, reduce the fee requests, or refer the matter to a special Master again to recommend resolution. No one knows yet what it will be. In the meantime, OPRI is trying to raise additional legal funds for their pursuit of legal fees. You can go to www.opri.org for more information.
Everyone is now waiting for the Legislature to finally sine die. Adjournment is rumored to be imminent, perhaps late this week or early next week. My guess is that we'll see the Court's decision in City of Eugene (Lipscomb) shortly thereafter. In the meantime, if you're still befuddled by my "Gaslighting Abbie" post (many were), go to PERS' own web site and peruse their information on the Strunk case. In very plain language, PERS refers to the Court's decision in Strunk as ruling that "suspending COLAs" or "freezing COLAs" is illegal. So, just when you thought you had a thorough grasp of everything, PERS comes along to confuse you more. Sigh. The beat goes on.
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