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A group of nearly 40 disabled or sick former Nortel workers insist that they have been shortchanged as various creditors, bondholders, pensioners and their lawyers scrabble over the carcass of Nortel, the Toronto Star reported. They argue that the decision last year to divvy up the $7.3 billion (U.S.) that Nortel left behind — as well as a prior settlement relating to the company’s Health and Welfare Trust — is grossly unfair to former employees who were on long-term disability leave when the business went bankrupt in 2009. The group is trying to pressure the Canada’s federal innovation minister to change Canada’s bankruptcy laws to give disabled people preferred status when a defunct company’s assets are divided among its creditors.

Officers of the largest U.S. pension fund recommended yesterday that their investment targets drop to 7 percent because of a cash crunch and changing market conditions, a move that would set a more cautious tone for those who manage retirement assets around the country, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The proposal to abandon a long-held goal of 7.5 percent over three years came during a board committee meeting of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) in Sacramento. The rate would drop to 7.375 percent in fiscal 2017-18, 7.25 percent in fiscal 2018-19, and 7 percent in fiscal 2019-20. A reduction by CalPERS would have real-life consequences for taxpayers and cities. It would likely trigger an increase in yearly pension bills for the towns, counties and school districts that participate in California’s state pension plan. Any loss in expected investment earnings must be made up with significantly-higher annual contributions from public employers as well as the state. A drop in CalPERS’s return assumptions could also put pressure on other pension funds to be more aggressive about their reductions and concede that investment gains alone won’t be enough to fund hundreds of billions in liabilities.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral argument in Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp. (15-649) tomorrow at 10 a.m. ET. ABI’s Bill Rochelle will be covering the oral argument in Jevic tomorrow and will provide a video recap on ABI’s social media networks (Twitter, Facebook and Linked In) and a summary in the Rochelle Daily Wire. For more on the Jevic case, please click here.