(Bloomberg) -- New Jersey’s largest public pension funds are taking a newapproach to getting Governor Chris Christie to make billions ofdollars in skipped contributions, despite a state Supreme Courtruling saying he can’t be forced to do so.

The funds, representing teachers, the police and others, nowseek legal judgments covering payments not made in the 2014, 2015and 2016 fiscal years.

They asked a judge July 24 for permission to amend a lawsuit toseek the judgments.

On June 9, the Supreme Court ruled that Christie could skip a$1.6 billion payment due at the end of that month. Christie, aRepublican running for president, said the state couldn’t affordthe full $2.25 billion due under a 2011 law he signed to shore upthe pension systems.

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“We can’t force the appropriation, but we are entitled to ajudgment declaring that the money is owed,” Bennet Zurofsky, aunion attorney, said in a phone interview.

Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson ruled in February that thestate’s failure to make the full payment this year is a“substantial impairment” of contractual rights of the police,firefighters, teachers and office workers who sued. She saidChristie must work with lawmakers to fill the $1.57 billiongap.

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The Supreme Court then took up the case, handing Christie alegal victory that averted an immediate cash crunch.

Lawyers for the pension funds said a decision in their favorwould allow retirees to collect under the New Jersey ContractualLiability Act.

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“We’re simply seeking a judgment that can be collected in thesame manner that any other judgment in New Jersey can becollected,” said Robert Klausner, a union attorney. “We’remonetizing the obligation of the state to make the pension systemswhole for the benefits which have been earned.”

Klausner said the Supreme Court didn’t rule that the pensionobligations are unconstitutional. Rather, he said, “they onlydeclared unenforceable the timing of the payment schedule put intothe statute” in 2011.

Christie spokesman Brian T. Murray said the Supreme Court ruledthat lawmakers and the executive branch are responsible for thebudget process, not the courts.

“The public pension and benefits system is unsustainable in itscurrent form,” Murray said in an e-mail.

“The average public teacher contributes less than $200,000 andgets more than $2 million in pension and health care benefits, allbecause of New Jersey taxpayer subsidies. The math simply does notwork,” he said. “It is now time to move beyond lawsuits to find atangible, long-term solution to this problem.”

The case is Board of Trustees of Public Employees’ RetirementSystem of New Jersey v. State of New Jersey, MER- L-2818-14,Superior Court of New Jersey, Mercer County (Trenton).

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