Justice: not blind and not poor
I will concede that I missed this one, which was working its way through the courts before I took over the beat. We ran this AP story yesterday about a guy whose case got torpedoed, not because of anything he did, but because of justices' financial holdings and their desire to avoid impropriety.
SAN FRANCISCO - Braxton Berkley had a well-paying assembly line job at Lockheed Martin's famed Skunk Works factory in Burbank. He took pride in contributing to the national defense effort at the height of the Cold War, building F-117 Nighthawks, SR71 Blackbirds and other top secret planes for the military.
But he alleged that the chemicals he and his colleagues used to degrease parts and wash their hands eventually made the workers sick. Berkley was among hundreds who sued Lockheed and the firms that supplied the chemicals, including some of the world's biggest oil companies. The cases began going to trial a decade ago in groups of about a dozen each.
But Berkley's case ended abruptly, and in a most unusual way.
In November, the California Supreme Court dismissed his appeal after initially agreeing to hear it. The court's decision was based not on its legal merits, but because four of the seven justices controlled stock in oil companies that provided some of the solvents at issue, such as acetone.
The court's action - or inaction - has been the talk of the appellate bar since November, leaving lawyers on both sides in disbelief and law professors scratching their heads for a precedent.
"It's an odd one," said Santa Clara University law professor Gerald Uelmen.
That's little consolation to Berkley and his former co-workers, who have ping-ponged through the court system in pursuit of a multimillion-dollar verdict. Now, even their lawyers concede the case is dead and that a lower court's procedural ruling against them stands.
"It's unfair and I am very disgusted with the courts," said Berkley, now a minister in Pacoima. He suffers from diabetes and arthritis that he says were caused by the chemicals.
"A lot of my friends died because of the toxic chemicals we handled," he said. "I am very disappointed and I don't know why they would do something like that."
It's pretty jacked, to use a non-legal, but perfectly applicable term. The judges appear to be trying to do the right thing, because it would clearly be wrong for them to rule on a case that they've got financial stakes in. But that right thing must feel pretty wrong to Mr. Berkley, who's out of luck as a result of their attempt to remain above board.
Leave a comment