A group of California judges, led by Judge Maryanne Gilliard, is suing the state for mishandling their wage increases for about a decade. In California, the average pay for judges is about $240,000. Under state law, they are guaranteed a raise almost every year.

California law clearly states that judges will receive annual raises, which are calculated by the “average percentage salary increase” given to other California state employees. In 2024, judges received a 2.6% wage increase, which is less than the 3.2% granted in the previous year.

The new lawsuit, if successful, means that the State of California would owe about $40 million to the judges for mandated yet missed increases in salary and benefits.

The class action lawsuit suit seeks an official “declaration” confirming that “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.”

The lawsuit by Sacramento Superior Court Judge Maryanne Gilliard focuses partly on how Governors Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom increased the pay for state public employees but did not include major salary increases. This new complaint claims that California illegally paid the judges less than their due by not including some of the salary raises and benefits that went into recent contracts.

In legal documents filed with the court, the judges suing California claim that the state has been underpaying them when their wages are calculated by “mishandling” the salary-raise formula that is imposed by the state. In one instance, a judge says the state of California must go back about a decade and correct their match, which would have resulted in larger pay raises for the judges during those prior years.

In a statement issued recently by the Alliance of California Judges, the plaintiffs said, “There’s a reason why our latest pay increases have been so puny and falling far short of the rate of inflation. The state didn’t tinker with the statutory formula, but it seems to have played with the inputs.”

The lawsuit names the State Controller’s Office, the State of California, and the California State Employees’ Retirement System as defendants.

The mishandling of pay increases is not a new issue in the state. About ten years ago, a similar and successful appeals court lawsuit, brought by retired appeals court Justice Robert Mallano, resulted in the state paying $40 million to the judges.

In the lawsuit, the judges claim that the state has only been including the general salary raises in its formula, and did not correctly employ the required formula for the judge’s raises. The complaint alleges the state excluded the more “targeted” raises used for specific state employees, such as judges.

Legal documents allege that “Defendant CalHR has intentionally modified the inputs to the calculation such that active judges and justices are paid less than the salaries to which they are entitled.”

In November, the state of California disagreed with the judges' allegations. The state attorneys told a judge that they “properly calculated state employee average salary increases” under state law “and that the state is not required to include ‘all categories of increases’ concerning average salary increases when determining “state employee average salary increases.”

Overall, California judges’ salaries are the third highest in the U.S. However, this figure does not take into account California’s high cost of living. When adjusted to take the cost of living into account, the salaries for California judges plummet to number 25 on the list of highest-paid U.S. judges.