A Sacramento County Superior Court judge has filed a lawsuit alleging that California judges, who make at least $238,500 annually, have been denied legally mandated yearly pay raises due to state officials’ miscalculations.
The class-action lawsuit on behalf of Judge Maryanne Gilliard was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court in September, alleging that the California Department of Human Resources’ formula for calculating judicial pay raises has shortchanged jurists. The complaint seeks compensation dating back to the 2016-2017 fiscal year, meaning that the state could be on the hook for millions of dollars in back pay if the lawsuit is successful.
“... For years, the judges and justices serving California’s court system – the largest in the nation – have been knowingly underpaid by defendant … California Department of Human Resources (CalHR), which is responsible for all issues related to the salaries of California state employees, including active jurists,” the lawsuit states.
Also named as defendants in the lawsuit are multiple state retirement systems. The complaint alleges that judges, their survivors and beneficiaries have not received what they’re due in terms of retirement, disability, death and survivor benefits as a result of miscalculated yearly pay hikes.
“Section 68203 of the Government Code requires that ‘the salary of each justice and judge … shall be increased by the amount that is produced by multiplying the then-current salary of each justice or judge by the average percentage salary increase for the current fiscal year for California state employees,” the lawsuit says.
The dispute centers around exactly how the percentage increase of state employees’ pay is determined. The plaintiff argues that the annual raises should be based on general salary increases, or GSIs, which apply to all employees in a bargaining unit, as well as special salary adjustments, or SSAs, which are handed out only to specific classifications of workers.
“... Since the 2006-2007 fiscal year, defendant CalHR has only used one category of salary increases – GSIs – to calculate the ‘average percentage salary increase,’” the complaint states.
Because CalHR has excluded SSAs from its pay raise formula for judges, they are paid below what they are entitled under state law, the plaintiff argues.
Gilliard, who is one of the directors of the advocacy group Alliance of California Judges, declined to comment when contacted by the Southern California Record. The California Judges Association also did not respond to a request for comment.
The Alliance of California Judges, however, did publish a statement when the complaint was filed:
“There’s a reason why our latest pay increases have been so puny and falling far short of the rate of inflation,” the statement says. “The state didn’t tinker with the statutory formula, but it seems to have played with the inputs. … Judge Gilliard is working with the law firm of Skadden Arps to get the state to come correct.”
In a status conference statement filed in November, CalHR said that the agency had properly calculated the state employee average salary increases based on the law governing those calculations.
“... This statute does not require the inclusion of ‘all categories of salary increases’ when calculating state employee average salary increases,” the status conference statement says. “Therefore, CalHR contends that its calculations are correct and denies all wrongdoing. CalHR intends to raise all available defenses to the complaint, including but not limited to a statute of limitations bar.”
The lawsuit seeks a declaration that says all categories of state employee salary increases should be used to calculate judicial pay hikes, recalculations of back pay and benefits for eligible class members, pre-judgment and post-judgment interest, and attorney fees and court costs.