Legal News

New York Judge Orders Pay Raise for New York Judges

By Dan Slater

Should the salaries of New York State judges be linked to those of its legislators? NYS Supreme Court Justice Edward H. Lehner said no yesterday, ordering the legislature to give the state’s 1,250 judges their first pay raise in 10 years. Click here for the NYT’s report, here for the NYLJ’s and here for the New York Sun’s.

The suit was filed last September by four judges — two from family court, one from civil court and one from criminal court. The suit didn’t request a specific salary, but did request an award of $600,000 for each judge, an amount that would account for cost of living increases since 2000.

In his 17-page decision, Lehner, who, notes the NYT, would himself get a pay raise under the ruling, said he believed that legislators did unfairly link their desire for a pay raise with that of the judges. The government has used “judicial pay as a pawn in dealing with the unresolved political issue of legislative compensation,” he wrote. He said the link was “an abuse of power by defendants and constitutes an unconstitutional interference upon the independence of the judiciary.” Lehner didn’t specify a salary amount, but instructed the Legislature to proceed “in good faith to adjust the compensation payable to members of the judiciary,” and to consider compensating judges for salary shortfalls in previous years. In his ruling, Lehner gave the Legislature 90 days to increase the current salary of $136,700 for all New York State trial judges.

Chadbourne’s George Bundy Smith, the lawyer for the four judges, told the NYT he believed that state judges should earn a salary comparable to that of Federal District Court judges, who currently earn $169,300 annually. (Smith, whose judicial service began in 1975, served as an associate judge of the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, for 14 years until his retirement from the bench in in 2006.)

Will the legislature appeal? Gov. David A. Paterson’s office released a statement saying that his administration was considering its options. “While the governor has long supported salary increases for judges, today’s opinion flies in the face of the State Constitution, which makes clear that only the Legislature has the power to set judicial salaries.”

A separate judicial pay raise suit was filed in April by New York’s chief judge, Judith S. Kaye, charging that the political process has denied them their constitutional right to an “adequate” salary, because the State Legislature has refused to give them a raise for the last decade. A hearing is scheduled next month for Judge Kaye’s lawsuit, which Justice Lehner will hear as well.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on June 12, 2008 (boomark / email).