Lawyers representing all sides in the ongoing dispute between the now-bankrupt city of Stockton, Calif., its bondholders and the massive California Public Employees Retirement System say that the battle may make its way to the Supreme Court.

And with no existing legal roadmap for this kind of thing, experts say the fight will help explain who will eventually be responsible for what as more and more financially impaired governments work to shed their expensive employee retirement obligations.

According to the Financial Times and Debtwire, the battle has come down to whether or not the City of Stockton – the first of several large California cities to file for bankruptcy this year, based in part on its inability to pay for its pre-existing public employee benefits systems – can avoid impairing the CalPERS system as it seeks to sweep debts off its books.