Court Opinion

ID: 9800355
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 08:12:20.704167+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:42:28.525506
License: Public Domain

Freedman, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent because I believe that the past constitutional violations identified by the Court of Appeals in Matter of Maron v Silver (14 NY3d 230 [2010]) warrant retroactive monetary damages. Accordingly, I would reverse the order of Supreme Court and remand this action for a determination of appropriate compensation.
In Maron, the Court of Appeals held that the legislature’s failure to increase the compensation for judges and justices of the Unified Court System for more than 10 years jeopardized the judiciary’s independence and thereby violated the Separation of Powers Doctrine underlying our tripartite system of government {see generally Under 21, Catholic Home Bur. for Dependent Children v City of New York, 65 NY2d 344, 355-356 [1985]). The Court of Appeals directed the violation to be addressed with “appropriate and expeditious legislative consideration,” and reserved to the judiciary the authority to review “whether the Legislature has met its constitutional obligations” (Maron, 14 NY3d at 263). Since Maron was decided, an independent body, the Commission on Judicial Compensation, was established to recommend judicial salary adjustments and New York State judges and justices have received a three-tier compensation increase beginning in April 2012, more than 13 years after the last increase.
The questions now before this Court are whether the legislature satisfied its constitutional obligations by creating the Commission, which was authorized to recommend future increases starting almost three years after Maron but no retroactive compensation, and whether the judges aggrieved by defendants’ past constitutional violation are entitled to compensatory monetary damages. In my opinion, the legislature failed to fully comply with the directives in Maron that found a constitutional violation and that past and current members of the judiciary are entitled to monetary damages as the only available remedy for the past violation.
The Court of Appeals and this Court have set forth the relevant facts of this case in detail in Maron (14 NY3d at 244-246) and Larabee v Governor of State of N.Y. (65 AD3d 74, 77-79 [1st *175Dept 2009]). Briefly, plaintiffs in this action are four members of the judiciary who in September 2007 brought suit against the executive and legislative branches because plaintiffs and their fellow justices and judges had not received even a cost of living increase since January 1, 1999. Plaintiffs originally advanced two principal claims. First, they alleged that defendants’ failure to increase judicial salaries for more than eight years violated the State Compensation Clause (NY Const, art VI, § 25 [a]) because defendants allowed inflation to erode the value of those salaries.
Second, plaintiffs claimed that defendants’ failure to increase judicial compensation violated the Separation of Powers Doctrine. In support of their separation of powers claim, plaintiffs demonstrated that, since 1999, a number of bills to raise judicial compensation had been proposed to the legislature or passed by one legislative chamber but were not enacted because the proposed increases were linked by political considerations to unrelated objectives that the legislature or the Governor advanced, including legislative raises and measures for campaign finance reform (see Maron, 14 NY3d at 245). Plaintiffs sought both injunctive and declaratory relief, including an order compelling defendants to provide them with cost of living adjustments dating back to January 1, 2000.
In June 2008, Supreme Court (Edward H. Lehner, J.) granted plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment on the separation of powers claim to the extent of declaring that “defendants, through the practice of linkage, have unconstitutionally abused their power” and directed defendants to, within 90 days, “remedy such abuse” by making a good-faith adjustment to judicial compensation “to reflect the increase in the cost of living since . . . 1998, with an appropriate provision for retroactivity” (Larabee v Governor of State of N.Y., 20 Misc 3d 866, 878 [Sup Ct, NY County 2008], affd 65 AD3d 74 [1st Dept 2009], mod sub nom. Matter of Maron v Silver, 14 NY3d 230 [2010]).
In its June 2009 affirmance, this Court stated that the defendants had threatened “the integrity, in a structural sense, of the judicial system as an independent institution, in that New York’s constitutional architecture prohibits the subordination of the judicial branch to the other branches of government” (Larabee, 65 AD3d at 97).
In Maron, decided February 23, 2010, the Court of Appeals consolidated three appeals, including Larabee, that present and former state justices and judges brought to challenge the legislature’s repeated failure to raise judicial salaries. The Court *176of Appeals, while rejecting plaintiffs’ contention that defendants had violated the State Compensation Clause (NY Const, art VI, § 25 [a]), which prohibits the diminution of judicial compensation, agreed with the Larabee plaintiffs that “as a matter of law, the State defendants’ failure to consider judicial compensation on the merits violate[d] the Separation of Powers Doctrine” (Matter of Maron, 14 NY3d at 261). The Court identified five instances between 2006 and 2008 in which the adjustment of judicial compensation was improperly linked to unrelated objectives, and found that “by . . . holding [judicial compensation increases] hostage to other legislative objectives, the Legislature weakens the Judiciary by making it unduly dependent on the Legislature” {id. at 259 [internal quotation marks omitted]). The Court pointed out that the executive and legislative branches have bargaining power that the judiciary lacks, and accordingly “it is imperative that the legitimate needs of the judicial branch receive the appropriate respect and attention. This cannot occur if the Judiciary is used as a pawn ... in order to achieve ends that are entirely unrelated to the judicial mission” {id.).
Addressing the remedy for defendants’ violation, the Court of Appeals stated that specific injunctive relief was unnecessary because the Court presumed that the legislature would comply with “the constitutional standards” articulated in Maron (id. at 261). Accordingly, the Court of Appeals modified this Court’s ruling in Larabee by simply declaring that defendants had violated the Separation of Powers Doctrine and “allowing for the remedy discussed in this opinion” (id. at 264).
In December 2010, the legislature together with then-Governor David Paterson established the Commission on Judicial Compensation (L 2010, ch 567). The statute provided that members of the Commission were to be appointed on April 1, 2011 and the Commission would meet every four years to make recommendations for future salary adjustments which were to take effect unless the legislature specifically rejected them (id.). The first potential increase would not take effect until April 1, 2012.* In August 2011, the Commission recommended a 27% increase in judicial salaries, to be phased in over three years beginning on April 1, 2012, some six years after the *177first action in Maron was commenced. Those recommendations have been implemented.
In April 2011, plaintiffs in this action moved before Supreme Court Justice Richard F. Braun, who has presided over the case since Justice Lehner’s retirement, for leave to renew their motion for summary judgment, arguing that they are entitled to damages for defendants’ past constitutional violation because the legislature did not empower the Commission to recommend retroactive increases. Plaintiffs claim that damages should be calculated based upon cost of living adjustments that they should have received after January 1, 2000. In opposition, defendants argue that the Court of Appeals indicated that the adjustment of judicial salaries was the legislature’s prerogative and that Marón does not provide any basis for renewing any claim for retroactive compensation.
The motion court denied plaintiffs any further relief, finding that plaintiffs had “failed to establish that the legislature did not abide by the declaration of the Court of Appeals as to the legislature’s constitutional duties” (Larabee v Governor of the State of N.Y., 37 Misc 3d 748, 754 [Sup Ct, NY County 2012]). The court stated that “[i]nsofar as the Court of Appeals modified rather than affirmed the Appellate Division ... , it [superseded] Justice Lehner’s order to the extent that Justice Lehner had required a retroactive adjustment to judicial compensation” (id. at 754).
I disagree. In Matter of Maron, the Court of Appeals may not have explicitly addressed the issue of whether damages for defendants’ violation of the Separation of Powers Doctrine were available, but it did not hold that relief was precluded. Although the Court of Appeals implicitly rejected the specific relief that Justice Lehner ordered, which directly required defendants compensate members of the judiciary for the increased cost of living since their last pay raise in 1998 (see Larabee, 20 Misc 3d at 878), it still found a past constitutional violation for which there should be a remedy. In deference to the legislative and executive branches, the Court of Appeals declined to order specific relief in connection with defendants’ violation of the Separation of Powers Doctrine, but instead emphasized that “[w]hen this Court articulates the constitutional standards governing state action, we presume that the State will act accordingly” (14 NY3d at 261).
However, the Court of Appeals declared that it was within the province of the Court to determine “whether the Legislature *178has met its constitutional obligations” {id. at 263). Accordingly, defendants’ creation of a commission that could not consider retroactive increases is subject to judicial scrutiny. In my opinion, the legislature’s response to Maron failed to satisfy the Court of Appeals’ directives. The record before us contains no indication that the legislature ever considered compensation for past constitutional violations on the merits and defendants’ conclusory assertion to the contrary cannot substitute for evidence. The legislature was obligated to consider the merits of retroactive compensation free of any linkage, based on the Court’s finding that the first violation of the Separation of Powers Doctrine occurred in 2006. That year, the legislature failed to disburse state budget funds allocated to adjust judicial salaries retroactive to April 1, 2005 because of improper linkage (id. at 245).
Relief from defendants’ past constitutional violations can only be provided by way of monetary damages. Without a monetary award for past violations, the more than 600 judges and justices who retired between 2006 and April 1, 2012, including Hon. Arlene Silverman, plaintiff in Silverman v Silver (119 AD3d 449 [1st Dept 2014]) will not obtain any redress whatsoever for the violation of their constitutional rights.
Justice Sweeny’s concurrence questions whether monetary damages can be awarded to the judiciary against the legislature. However, it is disingenuous to characterize this lawsuit by judges seeking damages for past injuries as a lawsuit by one branch of government against the other. Rather, it is individual judges who are seeking damages for a constitutional violation for which there is no other remedy.
The remedy sought here is analogous to that awarded in Beer v United States (696 F3d 1174 [Fed Cir 2012], cert denied 569 US —, 133 S Ct 1997 [2013]). In Beer, federal judges successfully sued the United States Congress for the increase in pay that other federal employees had received as cost of living increases (COLAs) but had been blocked by the United States Congress for judges. As in Larabee, the Court in Beer found a constitutional violation, namely, that failure to allow for pay increases violated the Compensation Clause of the United States Constitution. The United States Circuit Court for the Federal Circuit determined that judges were entitled to an increase equal to the COLAs and also awarded monetary damages to compensate judges for the increases they should have received since 2003 (Beer, 696 F3d at 1186-1187). Federal judges have *179been awarded their COLAs, and damages for lost pay are forthcoming (see Beer v United States, 111 Fed Cl 592 [2013]).
Justice Sweeny distinguishes Beer on the ground that it involved violation of a different constitutional provision from the one in this case. However, Beer is cited, not for the specific constitutional violation involved, but to demonstrate that damages are an appropriate, if not the only, remedy for a past constitutional violation.
Plaintiffs are entitled to a remedy that compensates them for the violations in an amount equal to the economic injury they sustained (see Albemarle Paper Co. v Moody, 422 US 405, 418-419 [1975]). The remedy must be “coextensive with the wrong it is to redress” (Weissman v Evans, 56 NY2d 458, 467 [1982]).
New York courts have recognized monetary damages as appropriate relief for constitutional violations for judges who have been subject to those violations (see Dickinson v Crosson, 219 AD2d 50, 54 [3d Dept 1996] [Equal Protection Clause rights of Family Court judge plaintiffs in Broome County violated by compensation disparity based upon their geographical location]; Nicolai v Crosson, 214 AD2d 714, 715 [2d Dept 1995], appeal dismissed 88 NY2d 867 [1996] [same for Family Court and County Court judges in Westchester County]; Deutsch v Crosson, 171 AD2d 837 [2d Dept 1991] [same for New York City Family Court judges]). In Dickinson, Nicolai, and Deutsch, the amount of damages was easily calculated by comparing disparities in compensation, but in this case, the amount that would put plaintiffs in the position they would have been in were it not for defendants’ improper actions (see e.g. Weissman v Evans, 56 NY2d at 467) cannot be calculated based on any single factor. While plaintiffs seek damages calculated based upon the inflation rate, other factors are relevant to making the determination. For example, the amounts that had been budgeted for judicial compensation reform but were never disbursed, the compensation adjustments that other New York State employees received during the relevant period, and adjustments that judges and public employees in other states and the federal government received, are among the multitude of factors that should be considered.
Accordingly, I would remand this action to Supreme Court to determine compensatory damages for the constitutional violations that the Court of Appeals identified from 2006 onward. Contrary to the suggestion in Justice Tom’s concurring opinion, I do not believe that plaintiffs are entitled to damages from *180January 2000, and emphasize that those damages cannot simply be based on the past increase in the cost of living.
Tom, J.E, concurs in a separate opinion; Sweeny, J., concurs in a separate opinion in which Renwick, J., concurs; Freedman, J., dissents in a separate opinion in which Andrias, J., concurs.
Order, Supreme Court, New York County, entered September 14, 2012, affirmed, without costs.

 The Commission was empowered to “determine whether, for any of the four years commencing on the first of April of such years, following the year in which the commission is established, the annual salaries [for state judges] . . . warrant adjustment” (L 2010, ch 567, § 1 [a] [ii]).