Diana Motz | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Motz in 2022 | |
| Senior Judge of theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit | |
| Assumed office September 30, 2022 | |
| Judge of theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit | |
| In office June 16, 1994 – September 30, 2022 | |
| Appointed by | Bill Clinton |
| Preceded by | Seat established |
| Succeeded by | Nicole Berner |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Diana Jane Gribbon (1943-07-15)July 15, 1943 (age 82) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse | J. Frederick Motz |
| Education | Vassar College (AB) University of Virginia (JD) |
Diana Jane Gribbon Motz (born July 15, 1943) is aseniorUnited States circuit judge of theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Born inWashington, D.C., Motz[1] was raised in a legal family. Her father was attorney Daniel M. Gribbon, who had clerked for JudgeLearned Hand.[2] She earned aBachelor of Arts degree fromVassar College in 1965 and aJuris Doctor from theUniversity of Virginia School of Law in 1968.[3] She was one of two women in her law school class.[4]
Motz worked in private law practice inBaltimore,Maryland for the firm Piper & Marbury (nowDLA Piper) from 1968 until 1971. She became the assistantstate attorney general for the state of Maryland in 1972, and served in that capacity until 1986, when she returned to private practice. While an assistant state attorney general for Maryland, Motz won a $268,482 judgment against former Vice PresidentSpiro Agnew to recover money he accepted as bribes while he wasGovernor of Maryland.
In 1991, Motz returned to the public sector, appointed as an associate judge for the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland. She worked in that court until her confirmation by the United States Senate in 1994 as a federal appeals court judge.
Motz was nominated by PresidentBill Clinton on January 27, 1994, to theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, to a new seat authorized by 104 Stat. 5089. She was confirmed by theUnited States Senate on June 15, 1994, and received commission on June 16, 1994.[3] She is the first woman from Maryland to serve on the Fourth Circuit. She announced that she was going to assumesenior status upon confirmation of a successor.[5][6] She assumedsenior status on September 30, 2022.[3]
Her husband,J. Frederick Motz, had been appointed a federal district court judge by PresidentRonald Reagan in 1985. The Motzes are the first married couple to each sit on the federal bench. "Yes, it's true: He's a Republican. It's his only flaw," Motz quipped.[7]
In August 2018, Motz wrote a special concurrence when the panel majority found that the Constitution'sEighth Amendment did not prevent Virginia from criminally prohibiting those it identified as “habitual drunkards” from possessing alcohol, in which she argued the majority was ignoringPowell v. Texas (1968).[8][9] In July 2019, the full circuiten banc reversed the panel by a vote of 8-7, with Motz now writing for the majority.[10][11]
On December 3, 2021, Motz, writing for a unanimous panel (joined by Judges Wilkinson and Niemeyer), found that theEqual Pay Act requires equality in each pay type, not just the total. Motz wrote "Rather, the statute and theEEOC’s regulations make clear that an employer violates the Equal Pay Act if it pays female employees at a rate less than that of similarly situated male employees. A hypothetical illustrates the point: “As a matter of common sense, total remuneration cannot be the proper point of comparison. If it were, an employer who pays a woman $10 per hour and a man $20 per hour would not violate the [Equal Pay Act] . . . as long as the woman negated the obvious disparity by working twice as many hours.”"[12][13]
| Legal offices | ||
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| New seat | Judge of theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit 1994–2022 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
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| National | |
