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Under state pay grades, the six California Superior Court
judges each earn more than $181,000 a year. The lawsuit filed on
Dec. 23 says their pension contributions should be lowered by
about $13,000 a year.
The six, who were elected in 2012, claim a pension reform law
signed by Governor Jerry Brown which took effect Jan. 1, 2013
has raised their pension contributions to 15 percent from 8
percent of their salary. They say the 8 percent contribution was
set in stone and should not have been raised by the new law
retrospectively.
The California Public Employees Retirement System, or Calpers,
said the lawsuit was so recently filed it was too early to
comment on it. Calpers is America's biggest public pension fund,
managing assets of $300 billion.
Last January, a former California appeals court judge sued on
behalf of 1,600 judges. He contends that California judges are
owed pension increases and back pay because their salaries,
frozen for five years, did not keep pace with increases to other
state workers under state law.
If that lawsuit prevails it could wipe out a $97 million
reduction in the state's pension liability that had been gleaned
from lower state salaries for other employers, according to
Calpers's chief actuary Alan Milligan in comments made earlier
this year.
Judges in both lawsuits have sued defendants including Calpers
and John Chiang, the California state controller. A spokesman
for Chiang said the controller was named in the lawsuits because
his office processes the pension payments, but that Chiang had
no role in calculating the payments.
The judges' action was earlier reported by legal news service
the Courthouse News Service.
(Reporting by Tim Reid; Editing by Grant McCool and Cynthia
Osterman)
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