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Thursday, June 12, 2008

Courts - "N.Y. Governor, Legislature Ordered to Raise Pay of State's Judges"

The subheading to this story by Daniel Wise of the New York Law Journal is: "Attorney calls ruling 'precedent setting' because it is 'the first time the linking of judicial pay to that of legislators has been found unconstitutional'".

See this April 12th ILB entry for background on the NY judges' lawsuit. From today's story:

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Edward H. Lehner on Wednesday gave the state Legislature and Gov. David A. Paterson 90 days to adjust the pay of the state's 1,300 judges to reflect the rise in the cost of living since their last raise nearly 10 years ago.

Lehner found that the Legislature and the governor had "unconstitutionally abused their power" by neglecting to raise judicial pay. He concluded in Larabee v. Governor, 112301/07, that the executive and legislative branches had violated the separation of powers doctrine by linking judicial pay to extraneous legislative issues such as raises for the legislators themselves and campaign finance reform.

While the lawsuit was brought by individual judges and is not a class action, Lehner noted that "it has at all times been recognized by the parties that the issue with respect to constitutionality affects all members of the judiciary who are part of the Unified Court System."

Lehner also ordered the defendants to include "an appropriate provision for retroactivity." The Legislature and governor are to proceed in "good faith," he wrote, inviting the four judges who brought the lawsuit to seek additional relief if an adequate remedy is not in place within 90 days.

June Duffy, the head of the attorney general's New York City litigation bureau, said the governor and the Legislature have not made any decision concerning an appeal. Duffy declined to say whether the defendants would be entitled, by statute, to a stay of the ruling in the event of an appeal.

Thomas E. Bezanson, of Chadbourne & Parke, the lead attorney for the four judges who sued to compel a raise, said that if an automatic stay is applicable, "we are hopeful that the First Department will rescind it because the defendants had 10 years to do the right thing."

Bezanson called the ruling "precedent setting" because it represents "the first time the linking of judicial pay to that of legislators has been found unconstitutional." * * *

Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye has filed a separate lawsuit seeking to compel a pay raise to make the salaries of state judges comparable to those paid to federal district court judges, retroactive to April 1, 2005, at a total cost of $148 million. Under that formulation, the salaries of Supreme Court justices would be raised to $169,300 a year and the salaries of judges sitting in other courts would be adjusted proportionately.

Kaye's suit, Kaye v. Silver, 40076/08, also has been assigned to Justice Lehner. On Tuesday, the Legislature and governor filed a motion to dismiss that case using many of the same arguments as the attorney general's office used against the claims in Larabee.

Bernard Nussbaum, of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, who represents the chief judge in her lawsuit, said, "we are pleased with Justice Lehner's thoughtful decision and now trust that the governor and the Legislature will do the right thing." The Unified Court System is also a plaintiff in the chief judge's action. * * *

New York's judges have gone longer without a pay raise than the judges in any other state in the nation. Since 1999, the level of their salaries, when cost-of-living is taken into account, has slipped to 49th in the nation.

On June 7, 2007 the ILB posted this entry, headed "Linking of judges' pay to that of legislators decried at both federal and state levels," commenting on the fact that during the 2007 session, the Indiana General Assembly "passed a bill linking legislative salaries to those of Indiana judges."

[More] Here is today's story as reported by the NY Times.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 12, 2008 09:51 AM
Posted to Courts in general