DAILY BRIEFING
Senior Judges Sue Over Pay
A group of senior judges who say their salaries haven't kept pace with inflation has sued the federal government, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
They are seeking to restore cost-of-living raises denied to federal judges from 1993 to 1997.
The class-action suit was filed Dec. 29 in U.S. District Court in Washington, where Judge John Garrett Penn will have to decide his own fate and that of his peers.
The judiciary along with other federal employees received a 2.3 percent pay raise last week. But the 20 plaintiff judges say they and their colleagues are also entitled to retroactive adjustments.
Federal judges earn from $136,700 to $175,400 annually. If the cost-of-living adjustments had been granted annually since 1993 circuit judges would have earned about $9,000 more, and district judges would have earned about $8,600 more.
The judges, 12 of who are the chief judges of their courts, contend the nonpayment violates the 1989 Ethics Reform Act and the Constitution's guarantee that judicial salaries will not decrease while in office.
The ethics law included a provision for executive level federal employees-including judges-to receive cost-of-living increases beginning in 1991.
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