Judges' Pay-Raise Suit Dismissed By Appellate Court

A state Appellate Division panel has dismissed a lawsuit brought by several judges alleging that the State Legislature and the Governor's Office have illegally denied the entire state judiciary a pay raise for the past decade.

THOMAS E. MERCURE

Writing for the five-judge panel, Appellate Division Justice Thomas E. Mercure stated that while there was no question that raises were warranted and that the failure to grant them had eroded judges' buying power, no violation of law had occurred.

He noted that Federal case law had established that a Compensation Clause which was designed to protect judges from financial retribution for decisions they rendered that were unfavorable to the legislative or executive branches made no allowances for dealing with the impact of inflation on judicial pay. As a result, he said, unless it could be clearly proven that the pay freeze was the result of retaliation, the Compensation Clause could not be invoked for the sake of letting judges keep pace with the cost of living.

Justice Mercure noted that "the actual value of judicial salaries has declined approximately one-third since 1999," and that state judges' pay had been increased only twice in the past 20 years. "Thus, our state's judicial salaries currently rank 49th in the nation when adjusted for statewide cost of living, despite New York's preeminence as an economic and commercial center," he wrote.

The plaintiffs in the suit, who had the backing of Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye — who has brought a separate action on the matter — had argued that the pay freeze not only violated the state's own version of the Compensation Clause, it ran counter to the principle of separation of powers among the three branches of government.

Linked to Legislators' Hike

At the time the suit was filed last year, a judicial pay raise that then-Governor Eliot Spitzer favored and for which $69.5 million in state budget funding had been allocated stalled over the Legislature's insistence that its members, too, be given a raise. Mr. Spitzer had responded that he would not consent unless legislators agreed to ethics reforms affecting their private business activities.

Besides finding that the Compensation Clause was not designed to require "cost of living adjustments to offset inflation," Justice Mercure wrote that the U.S. Supreme Court had established that Congress could deny pay raises to itself, executive branch members and judges even if other Federal employees were all receiving increases for the corresponding period.

No Proof of 'Impairment'

This meant that the state's legislative body also had the power to withhold raises to certain groups, including the judiciary, Justice Mercure wrote, provided that there was no proof "that the judicial system's proper functioning has been impaired." There was no evidence of either "gross neglect" by the legislative and executive branches or a plot to punish the judges or drive them from office by keeping their pay depressed.

Any argument by the plaintiffs on the latter claim was weakened, he stated, by the fact that neither the Governor's salary nor that of legislators had been increased during the same period. And "allegations that a number of judges have resigned or intend to do so for financial reasons is not sufficient to state a claim based upon impairment of the functioning of the judicial system," Justice Mercure wrote.

As a result, the panel dismissed the suit, even though, he stated, "we wholeheartedly sympathize with petitioners in this matter."