Opinion ID: 700706
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Compensation Clause

Text: 26 The Compensation Clause provides that the compensation of Article III judges shall not be diminished during their tenure in office. U.S. Const. art. III, Sec. 1; see supra note 6. In order to prevail on a Compensation Clause claim, the judges must show a direct, discriminatory assault on judicial independence, [a] 'plan fashioned by the political branches ... ineluctably operating to punish the judges qua judges....'  Duplantier v. United States, 606 F.2d 654, 669 (5th Cir.1979) (quoting Atkins v. United States, 556 F.2d 1028, 1054, 214 Ct.Cl. 186, cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1009, 98 S.Ct. 718, 54 L.Ed.2d 751 (1978)) (second and third alterations in original), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1076, 101 S.Ct. 854, 66 L.Ed.2d 798 (1981).  'Indirect, nondiscriminatory diminishments of judicial compensation, those which do not amount to an assault upon the independence of the third branch or any of its members, fall outside the protection of the Compensation Clause....'  Id. (quoting Atkins, 556 F.2d at 1045). 27 The district court concluded that the Jefferson County occupational tax constitutes a diminishment of the judges' salaries. The court relied upon its earlier conclusion that Ordinance 1120 is not, in fact, a tax upon the receipt of income, pay, or compensation, (the taxable event held in O'Malley to be constitutionally permissible), but rather is a license or privilege tax which finds its taxable event, or incidence, in the performance of a federal judicial function. Acker, 850 F.Supp. at 1547. Because the incidence of the tax is thus antecedent to the point that the salary therefor having been paid by the government becomes the property of the [judges], the court reasoned, the ordinance diminished rather than taxed the judges' salaries. 28 As we have discussed, however, the practical effect of Ordinance 1120 is that of an income tax. It is well established that the Compensation Clause does not forbid the federal government from levying an income tax on federal judges. O'Malley v. Woodrough, 307 U.S. 277, 282, 59 S.Ct. 838, 840, 83 L.Ed. 1289 (1939). Moreover, Judge Acker and Judge Clemon have failed to show that they are being taxed purely for their judicial function. By its terms, Ordinance 1120 taxes persons holding ... any kind of office or position either by election or appointment, by any federal, state, county or city officer or employee, Ordinance 1120, Sec. 1(C) (emphasis added); this provision applies equally to the executive and legislative branches as well as to the judicial branch. Consequently, the Jefferson County occupational tax  'do[es] not amount to an assault upon the independence of the third branch or any of its members,'  Duplantier, 606 F.2d at 669 (quoting Atkins, 556 F.2d at 1045), and as such its application to Article III judges is not barred by the Compensation Clause.