NY court interpreters demand second shot at fight for higher wages

MANHATTAN (CN) — Language interpreters in the New York state court system asked the Second Circuit on Monday to revive their fight for heftier salaries, arguing that their comparatively low pay is discriminatory based on their national origins.

Serving a vital role to ensure the equality of non-English-speaking parties in the U.S. legal system, the class of interpreters argued in their now-dismissed 2022 complaint that they are paid substantially less than court reporters in state court, and around half as much as their interpreter counterparts in federal court.

A federal judge tossed their complaint last year, finding the interpreters failed to plausibly show discriminatory pay practices. But that ruling was incorrect, the interpreters’ attorney Arthur Schwartz told the Second Circuit on Monday.

Schwartz, a union lawyer with Advocates for Justice, argued his clients are a group made up “100% of people who either speak a foreign language or associate with people who speak a foreign language.”

And despite their qualifications being “more onerous” than those of court reporters, they receive lower salaries on the basis of their national origins, Schwartz said.

The trio of judges overseeing Monday’s arguments expressed some skepticism, however. U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo, a Barack Obama appointee sitting with the panel by designation from the Western District of New York, asked Schwartz why the same arguments couldn’t be made for teachers.

“School teachers are underpaid,” Vilardo said. “People could make the argument that what they do is crucially important and perhaps more onerous than what a baseball player does. But we don’t pay people commensurate with how hard their job is or what their qualifications are. We pay them based on lots of other things, right?”

In this case, Schwartz argued the reason behind the pay disparity is what’s at issue. Teachers are a diverse mix of genders, races and nationalities, whereas Schwartz said his clients were mostly born outside the United States.

“You could not say for a school teacher that there’s a suspect classification that they all belong to,” Schwartz said. “Every single one of the interpreters belongs to a class that’s a suspect classification.”

Schwartz added that it’s not just the pay discrepancies that are at issue in this case — his clients also suffer discrimination in their day-to-day duties that other court employees, like court officers and court reporters, don’t experience.

“It is customary for judges, court reporters and court clerks to have [a] desk inside a courtroom and in an office, but it is not so for court interpreters, who are mostly immigrant minorities, despite having our own code of ethics and being classified as professionals by the EEOC,” the interpreters say in their complaint.

They also point to specific examples of discrimination in the courtroom, such as a 2021 incident in which a judge referred to court interpreters as “chattel.”

Court reporters and officers don’t face issues like this, the interpreters claim.

At one point on Monday, U.S. Circuit Judge Barrington Parker pressed Schwartz directly on his repeated comparisons between the interpreters and court reporters.

“In a market that was entirely a free market, which of these occupations would demand higher compensation?” the George W. Bush appointee posed.

Schwartz replied that the rest of the United States courts, including the Second Circuit itself, pay more for interpreter services.

“They have to translate two ways, back and forth, complex legal terms and connotations in what people are saying,” Schwartz said.

Vilardo eventually voiced his sympathy for the interpreters, acknowledging that the pay differences noted in their complaint are “stark.”

“It’s pretty clear that in the state system, interpreters are underpaid compared to the way they’re paid in federal court and compared with the way similar workers are paid in the state court,” the judge said.

The question now before the judges is whether that pay gap can plausibly be attributed to discrimination. If it can, Schwartz and his clients will get another shot at bringing their case before a federal judge.

U.S. Circuit Judge Michael Park, a Donald Trump appointee, rounded out the panel, which did not indicate when or how it will rule.

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