Judiciary
New York’s Top Judge Sues for Pay Hike
Posted Apr 11, 2008, 11:11 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
New York Chief Judge Judith Kaye has filed a lawsuit to try to force a pay raise for the state’s judges.
The suit seeks pay raises retroactive to 2005 when Kaye first proposed a pay hike, at a cost of $148 million, the New York Law Journal reports. Kaye and the Unified Court System are the named plaintiffs.
Representing the plaintiffs on a pro bono basis is lawyer Bernard Nussbaum of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. He said he hopes to call Kaye to testify about how the judiciary has suffered from nine years without a pay increase. He also wants to ask Gov. David Paterson and legislative leaders why bills to increase pay failed to pass.
The suit says that “no other state or federal judges anywhere in the United States have gone longer without an increase in their compensation—not even a cost-of-living adjustment," according to a summary on the New York Personal Injury Lawyer Law Blog.
The complaint alleges the governor and legislature have failed to provide adequate funding for the judiciary, violating the separation of powers. It also claims the defendants violated a state constitutional prohibition against reducing judges’ pay.
"In the last decade, judges’ salaries have declined by 27 percent while the pay of state employees has increased by 24 percent," Nussbaum said in a news conference. "This is an awful and outrageous situation that at some point becomes unconstitutional, and that is what has happened."
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