Overview
- The Court of Appeals rejected a challenge to the state constitutional rule that judges must retire at age 70 and held that one constitutional provision does not implicitly repeal another.
- The majority issued a per curiam opinion that preserved the retirement cap but said the Equal Rights Amendment should not be read as unenforceable when brought in other discrimination cases.
- Associate Justice Shirley Troutman wrote a separate concurrence that agreed with upholding the cap while urging a stronger, clearer statement that the ERA creates self‑executing rights against the government.
- The three judges who brought the suit said they were disappointed, while rights groups such as the NYCLU welcomed the court’s language affirming the ERA’s practical force for future claims.
- The decision rests on New York’s long history of a judicial retirement age and leaves the legal standard for evaluating ERA‑based age classifications unresolved, making more case‑by‑case litigation likely.