State ex rel. West Virginia Magistrates Ass'n v. Gainer

NEELY, Chief Justice:

Today we revisit one of the issues raised but not decided in Donaldson v. Gainer, 170 W.Va. 300, 294 S.E.2d 103 (1982). In syllabus point 4 of Donaldson, we held that equal protection requires that magistrates receive equal pay for equal work, but we declined to declare the current pay system for magistrates (which is based on the number of people a magistrate serves) unconstitutional in Donaldson because there was no factual showing there that the work of all magistrates is equal.

The original mandamus proceeding before us now was filed by members of the West Virginia…