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so, you say corporations have no advantage in the courts…

not-so-blind justice

For years, Braxton Berkley was exposed to chemicals while helping build top-secret military planes at Lockheed Martin’s storied Skunk Works plant. He says those chemicals made him ill — but his case reached a dead end at the state’s highest court.

The California Supreme Court has refused to hear his appeal not on legal merits, but because four of the seven justices cited a conflict of interest because they controlled stock in oil companies that provided some of the solvents at issue in the case.
…
It’s common for at least one justice to bow out of a case because of a financial or personal conflict. California Chief Justice Ron George, for instance, recuses himself from cases handled by the prominent law firm where his son practices. In those situations, an appellate judge is temporarily appointed to the Supreme Court to hear that case.

George said the remaining justices decided to dismiss the case because they were concerned that a Supreme Court ruling made with a majority of temporary justices wouldn’t hold the same weight as an opinion of the permanent court.

“This is a very unusual situation and I hope it doesn’t recur,” George said.
…
Because Berkley’s case is a state case with no federal issues, it can’t be appealed to any other court, so the lawsuit is effectively finished. George said the Lockheed workers had their cases thoroughly reviewed by trial and appellate judges.

This is insane. There is a procedure for dealing with the situation, but the court refuses to use it because it might diminish the court’s prestige.

While George may think this “unusual situation” is unlikely to recur, with so many mutual funds, index funds, and other basket investments out there, and with financial firms investing in one another to stem the hemorrhage from the subprime mess, it will become more and more difficult for judges to distance themselves from the corporations that come before them. And this circumstance will always work against the little guy: the chances that the average plaintiff suing a corporation would have a personal connection with a majority of state supreme court justices is laughable.

If a system exists to protect the legal rights of both the plaintiff and the defendant, use it. The California Supreme Court’s precious prestige can stand the blow - but our justice system, already weighted in favor of corporations, cannot.

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This entry was written by slim and posted on January 15, 2008 at 10:01 am and filed under Corporate control, Economic justice. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

4 Comments so far (Add 1 more)

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  1. The court system today makes Darrow’s sentiment as true as ever.

    “There is no such thing as justice — in or out of court.” Clarence Darrow

    [reply to this]

    1. Above written by bushtoolNo Gravatar on January 15th, 2008 at 6:06 pm (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

  2. I really doubt that the judges had anything near a substantial interest in the companies involved. If any of them owned 1% or more of the stock in these companies, it might then be a conflict of interest.

    The real problems with conflict of interest are more like those described in David Cay Johnston’s new book, Free Lunch. Get a copy and read it. Johnston has many examples including several from our home state, Washington. Interesting information re our current governor on page 66. It’s a must read.

    [reply to this]

    2. Above written by Pat CampbellNo Gravatar on January 16th, 2008 at 8:18 am (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

  3. Conflict of interest is an area that is often very difficult to sort out. Once I was on an arbitration panel for a NASD case where the plaintiff purchased a S&L stock that went south and was attempting to recoup his loss from the broker who sold it to him.

    About a third of the way into the arbitration, it all of a sudden occurred to me that this plaintiff was a principal in a construction company from whom my mother had purchased her townhouse several years earlier.

    Immediately I stopped the proceeding and disclosed this as a possible conflict of interest on my part. The plaintiff asked me a couple of questions including “Did my mother like her home and was she happy with her purchase?”. I indicated that yes she was satisified with the home.

    The plaintiff decided that I had no apparent grudge against him and did not challenge me. He could have had me immediately removed from the arbitration panel.

    However, I still was a little uncomfortable proceeding as one of the arbitrators. There was no way the plaintiff could get inside my head and be absolutely sure my opinion of him was not biased in some way nor I could be completely sure myself that my opinion of my mother’s home construction had somehow not tinged my view of him.

    [reply to this]

    3. Above written by bushtoolNo Gravatar on January 16th, 2008 at 9:48 am (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

  4. Well well well.

    I worked for the corporate defense law firm on this very case back in the early 90’s, a long time ago. Numerous workers came down with lung, skin, and kidney cancers from exposure to toxic chemicals during the construction of the B-2 bomber.

    At the time, and this still is probably the case, the chemical industry had NEVER lost a toxic torts claim. The Lockheed case essentially created an entire office for the firm that I was working for at the time.

    What the Lockheed supervisors did during the required toxic chemicals handling training was to say something to the effect of “This is Agent X, it is safe to use”, and then proceed to dip their forearms in the barrel of “Agent X”, the real name of which couldn’t be disclosed due to “national security reasons”.

    When the case came to trial, Lockheed claimed that they couldn’t train their workers the way OSHA demanded due to “national security reasons”, so they weren’t liable. Meanwhile, the B-2 is looked upon as somewhat of a white elephant, built for an opponent who no longer exists.

    Nice blog changes by the way — looks great!

    [reply to this]

    adminNo Gravatar reply on January 19, 2008:

    Thanks re the blog changes. :)

    [reply to this]

    4. Above written by AneurinNo Gravatar on January 18th, 2008 at 11:38 pm (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).
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