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Appeals court: Too late to re-hash Detroit 'Grand Bargain'

Detroit photo
Andrea_44 via Wikimedia | CC BY 2.0
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wikimedia.org

A federal appeals court says it’s too late to go back and re-hash the "Grand Bargain" that allowed Detroit to emerge from bankruptcy two years ago.

In a split decision, a panel of the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals rejected a challenge filed by five city of Detroit retirees. They say the city shouldn’t be allowed to reduce their benefits after they retired.

But the court said re-visiting the controversy could unravel the deal, and would stoke uncertainty.

The court said that would be unfair to other creditors, and hundreds of thousands of Detroit residents.

Jamie Scott is an attorney for the retirees. He says the decision is not fair to them.

"A lot of retirees are suffering," he says, "and they’ll suffer for many decades to come the effects of the bankruptcy."

One judge on the appeals court panel dissented.

Scott says he is ready to take the case to the United States Supreme Court if necessary.

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