A federal appeals court has set October 14 as the date for the next brief in a nationwide class action over how Social Security figures children’s benefits on the records of people who retired early. The case, L.N.P. v. Bisignano, argues that the agency shrank those children’s checks by using the wrong figure when it applied the cap on total family benefits. The date is a court filing deadline, not a deadline for families, and the court’s docket lists no ruling on the underlying question. Briefing runs through December 11, which means the answer is still months away.
What the Fourth Circuit has scheduled
The appeal carries two docket numbers, 26-1825 and 26-1883, because both sides appealed from the Eastern District of Virginia, where the case is numbered 1:24-cv-01196. The court merged the two appeals on July 13, 2026. Frank Bisignano, the Social Security commissioner, and the agency are named defendants, and the person suing, identified in filings only by the initials L.N.P., brought the case for his two dependent children and for others in the same position.
The Fourth Circuit docket shows the schedule was pushed back once. A July 14 order set briefs for August 24, September 23 and October 23. After the government asked for more time on July 24, the court granted a 21-day extension on July 27, and the dates now stand at September 14 for the opening brief and appendix, October 14 for an opening-and-response brief, November 13 for a response-and-reply brief and December 11 for any final reply. The briefing order treats Bisignano and the agency as the cross-appeal appellant. The docket’s latest entry is that July 27 order, so a later change would not appear there, and it lists no ruling and no argument date.
Families who may be in the group have no filing to make on October 14. A newsletter that tracks class actions reported in October 2025 that the class covers children of early retirees who received a reduced child’s benefit between May 10, 2024 and May 30, 2025, and that it excludes non-citizens, deceased children and accounts affected by excess-earnings adjustments. It said Social Security had mailed notices to those it believes qualify, that members are included automatically unless they opt out, and that no claim form or payment portal exists.
A parent who claims Social Security early takes a permanent cut to the check, and the children’s benefits on that record sit under a family cap. The Social Security Claiming & Family Benefits Kit includes a claiming calculator (Excel) that shows what claiming at each age pays.
Run the claiming-age numbers behind a child’s benefit with the Claiming Kit calculator →
How the family maximum cuts children’s checks
The dispute turns on a cap. Social Security says on its benefits-for-children page that a child can receive up to half of a parent’s full retirement or disability benefit, and that the limit on total family payments can be 150 to 180 percent of the parent’s full benefit amount. When the combined payments exceed the limit, each person’s benefit is reduced in proportion, though the parent’s own check is not touched.
The cap itself comes from a formula tied to the worker’s primary insurance amount, the benefit payable at full retirement age. For a worker who turns 62 in 2026, the agency’s actuaries publish four tiers: 150 percent of the first $1,643, 272 percent of the amount between $1,643 and $2,371, 134 percent of the amount between $2,371 and $3,093, and 175 percent of anything above $3,093. The result is rounded down to the next lower multiple of 10 cents.
The lawsuit says that is where the money goes missing. As the newsletter describes the complaint, Social Security applied the cap using the primary insurance amount, the higher full-retirement-age figure, instead of the reduced retirement benefit an early retiree actually receives. Using the larger number, the suit alleges, shrank the checks paid to children. The newsletter reported that a federal judge said the agency’s reading “appears inconsistent with the statute.”
How the case reached the appeals court
The same plaintiff has been in the Fourth Circuit before. According to the National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives, the court affirmed dismissal of his earlier claim in 2023, in L.N.P. v. Kijakazi, for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. He filed the current suit on July 9, 2024, and Judge Michael Nachmanoff heard the class certification motion and the government’s motion to dismiss on November 15, 2024. The plaintiff sought a nationwide class reaching back to 1999.
The class that emerged is far narrower in time. By the newsletter’s account, the court denied the government’s motion to dismiss before October 2025, and class counsel said it planned to ask for up to 25 percent of any recovery as fees, with families owing nothing if nothing is recovered. No settlement fund exists, and the newsletter said any payout would be back pay covering the gap between what children received and what the correct rule would have paid.
The docket lists lawyers Ira Kasdan, Damon Suden and Steven Schlesinger for the plaintiff, and Derek Weiss and Thomas Pulham for Bisignano and the agency. The docket’s entries through July 27 are scheduling orders, appearances and docketing statements, with no argument by either side on the merits.
Checking a child’s benefit on an early retiree’s record
Social Security’s benefits-for-children publication lays out who qualifies: a child under 18, a child 18 or 19 who is a full-time student in grade 12 or below, or an adult child disabled before age 22. Applications are taken at ssa.gov or by phone at 1-800-772-1213, with a birth certificate and both Social Security numbers on hand. Families that received a class notice should keep it, since membership runs through the notice.
The open point is arithmetic. Whether the family cap should count the full-retirement-age amount or the smaller early-retirement check decides how much room is left for children, and the Fourth Circuit has not yet said which reading the statute requires. The briefs due October 14, November 13 and December 11 are where the two sides will lay out their readings.
The detail behind a reduced child’s benefit
The figure that sets the family cap, a parent’s full-retirement-age benefit, is not the number on an early retiree’s check, and that gap is exactly what the lawsuit is about. The Social Security Claiming & Family Benefits Kit explains how that number is set and includes a claiming calculator (Excel) for claiming age, break-even and survivor benefits, so a parent weighing 62 against later can see what each age pays before the family cap applies.
Get the claiming calculator that shows what each filing age pays a family →
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by The Money Overview’s editorial team.
