State judge puts squeeze on Silver over pay raises
Curran wonders if firms employing legislators should be disqualified from court cases
By Tom Precious
- NEWS ALBANY BUREAU
Updated: 05/02/08 8:11 AM
-
- Justice John Curran is seeking to have the law firm of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver removed from a local case.
More Photos
ALBANY — Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s refusal to go along with a pay raise for state judges may come back to bite him in his own wallet.
A State Supreme Court justice in Erie County, who is part of an effort to get judges their first salary increase in a decade, has taken the first step in what could be the removal of Silver’s law firm from representing the county in a major lawsuit against the pharmaceutical industry.
If the Manhattan law firm is tossed from the case and Erie County wins its lawsuit, it could result in tens of millions of dollars in lost contingency fees.
The move by Justice John M. Curran in Erie County is the first time a judge has specifically targeted Silver’s law firm, after recent speculation that angry judges would try to make life difficult for state legislators who have side businesses with law firms.
Silver, through a spokesman, declined to comment.
The move by Curran, appointed to State Supreme Court in 2004 by then- Gov. George E. Pataki, could have implications for dozens of other state lawmakers who do legal work before the courts as side jobs to their government jobs, which pay them a base of $79,500 a year. One lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the outcome of Curran’s legal maneuver could disqualify other legislators with cases in state courts.
Curran this week quietly filed a notice with the Erie County clerk’s office seeking outside legal advice to determine if there are grounds to disqualify Weitz & Luxenberg — a Manhattan personal-injury firm that includes Silver as counsel — from a case filed several years ago by Erie County against 77 drug companies. The lawsuit seeks $150 million in actual and punitive damages for what the county claims was a pattern of overbilling for drugs for Medicaid patients.
Weitz & Luxenberg took on the case on a contingency fee basis. If it wins, it will get 20 percent of the award.
But Curran noted Silver’s affiliation with the firm could pose a problem. Curran, who has deep connections with state and local Conservative Party officials, is asking four outside experts — with backgrounds in legal ethics and attorney conduct issues — to determine if the firm representing the county poses ethical quandaries. Silver, as the Legislature’s top Democrat, has been named one of the defendants in a recent case brought by New York State Chief Judge Judith Kaye over the failure to give judges a pay raise.
Curran, in the legal papers, said he donated money to support the Kaye litigation. The papers also note that the State Senate passed a measure in late 2007 to give the judges a raise, “thereby apparently placing the Assembly as the only impediment to that bill.”
The Senate bill would have given judges a cost-of-living adjustment retroactive to January 2007, along with a $30,000 pay increase.
Curran declined to comment. In the legal papers, Curran said multiple media reports have “potentially given rise to the public perception” that Silver has control over whether State Supreme Court justices will receive a retroactive cost-of-living allowance and pay increase.
The judge is also asking the outside panel to advise him on whether Silver is “presently disqualified from appearing before this court” under a professional responsibility code outlining the appearance of impropriety.
If Silver is disqualified, Curran wrote, he will ask the panel of outside experts whether Silver’s firm should also be disqualified, given the Assembly speaker’s apparent prominence in the judicial pay raise lawsuit and his “purported political power” that has blocked the increase in pay.
Curran also said experts should determine if bar association ethics opinions come into play because Silver is the only member of the Assembly named in the Kaye lawsuit, as well as
his “close connection” to either the failure or success of a pay raise.
Curran asked for a panel response by June 6 — two weeks before the Legislature is to end its 2008 session, when the judicial pay raise could be resolved.
The state’s judges have been trying for four years to get a pay raise, their first since 1999.
The issue affects the pay of state and county judges and district attorneys. Silver, though, has sought to link the judicial pay raise with a salary increase for legislators, who also have not had a raise in a decade.
The Kaye lawsuit wants retroactive pay to 2005. She has complained bitterly that not paying judges more is an assault by other branches of government on the judiciary and is hurting efforts to attract quality judges. State Supreme Court justices, for instance, make $136,700 a year.
The New York Post on Sunday reported that some judges have been moving toward a work slowdown in cases represented by firms with state legislators as partners. The report noted some judges, including two in Cattaraugus County, have recused themselves from cases involving Silver’s firm. One, County Judge Larry Himelein, went so far as to call Silver “a slug,” the Post reported.
