California’s 3,400 sitting and retired judges will get a pay raise following a state appeals court order this week that the state give judges constitutionally mandated pay hikes that have been withheld for six years.
The Second District Court of Appeal panel on Wednesday ruled the state’s trial and appellate judges are entitled to raises, upholding a 2016 trial court decision, and added that judge were entitled to 10 percent interest on the unpaid salaries and benefits. In total, the state’s active judges are owed more than $23 million, according to the court, for back wages and interest.
State law provides for mandatory annual judicial salary increases using a formula of current judicial salary for each judge and multiplying it by the average percentage salary increase for state employees in the current fiscal year.
The state argued unsuccessfully that the average salary increase specified in the law also would include decreases caused by furloughs imposed during lean years, such as the mortgage crisis ofr 2008-09 and again in 2011-12.
Case: Millano v. Chiang, No. B272124
TrialInsider.com 