WASHINGTON _ The Supreme Court Monday overturned a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision on equal pay because Judge Stephen Reinhardt of Los Angeles died 11 days before the ruling was announced.
"Federal judges are appointed for life, not for eternity," the Supreme Court said in a brief, unsigned opinion.
During his long career, Reinhardt was a liberal leader of the 9th Circuit and voiced a certain pride in being reversed often by the more conservative Supreme Court.
On April 9, the 9th Circuit, based in San Francisco, issued an opinion in a Fresno, Calif., school case that was written by Reinhardt for the 6-5 majority.
The opinion upheld an Equal Pay Act claim brought by Aileen Rizo, who alleged that she was paid less than male colleagues because her starting salary was based unfairly on her pay in a previous job. Reinhardt said the 1963 law was intended to eliminate pay discrimination against women. It would be "inconceivable," he wrote, that the law would permit "disparities that Congress declared are not only related to sex but caused by sex."
But Reinhardt died March 29 when the case was still pending.
In a footnote issued with the ruling, the 9th Circuit said, "Prior to his death, Judge Reinhardt fully participated in this case and authored this opinion. The majority opinion and all concurrences were final, and voting was completed by the en banc prior to his death."
But lawyers for Jim Yovino, Fresno school superintendent, appealed. They questioned whether the 9th Circuit was right to bar employers from considering a job applicant's previous earnings when setting their salary. On Monday, the justices set aside the 9th Circuit's ruling based on Reinhardt's role.
In Yovino v. Rizo, the court said the 9th Circuit had not explained how the April 9 decision could be a "majority opinion" since it "was not endorsed by a majority of the living judges at the time of issuance."
The ruling Monday leaves unresolved the question of whether the Equal Pay Act forbids employers from paying new employees based on their previous salaries. Rizo's case will return to the 9th Circuit, which could convene a new en banc court to decide the issue, with another appellate judge taking Reinhardt's place.
The justices had a similar recent experience. In mid-February 2016, Justice Antonin Scalia died. He had cast votes in a series of cases in which opinions were pending when he died. In several cases, the Supreme Court announced that it was split 4-4 and could not issue a ruling.
