ABC News ran a story this week on state Supreme Court Chief Justice Robin Davis with the sensational headline, “Learjet Justice in West Virginia? A Circus Masquerading as a Court.”
The piece strongly suggests that Davis was integral in the court’s decision to uphold a huge verdict against the operator of a nursing home because of her ties with Michael Fuller, the attorney for the plaintiff.
The original verdict against HCR Manor Care was for $90 million, with the jury finding that Heartland of Charleston neglected Dorothy Douglas during her three-week stay. The high court reduced that just over $40 million, with Fuller’s firm getting $17 million.
The most alluring part of ABC’s story is the 2011 sale of a Learjet by the law firm of Davis’ husband, Scott Segal, to Fuller. ABC implies that Fuller may have gotten a sweetheart deal.
ABC goes on to report that Fuller and his associates raised $35,000 in campaign contributions for Davis in the Democrat’s 2012 re-election effort.
You see where this is going and it looks bad, but there are some important points that should be made in defense of Davis.
The campaign contributions were perfectly legal and, according to the West Virginia Code of Judicial Ethics, judicial candidates cannot raise money on their own or even know who has donated to them. Moreover, Davis spent nearly $1.3 million in her re-election bid and about two-thirds of that was her own money.
Davis and her successful trial lawyer husband Scott Segal are wealthy. If she needed another $35,000 for her campaign, they could have written a check.
The Learjet sale went through a broker and Davis says she was unaware of the deal so there was no need to recuse herself from Fuller’s case. “I was not involved in the details of the transaction and only learned about them much after the fact,” Davis said in a statement released Tuesday night.
It’s also worth noting that the plane was sold in 2011 for $1 million, which appears to be within market range for the type and age of the jet. That transaction occurred two-and-one-half years before the high court ruled on Fuller’s case.
True, Davis wrote the majority opinion, but three other justices agreed with it, making it a 4-1 decision. Even if Davis had recused herself and the replacement justice voted the other way, Fuller would have prevailed.
The ABC News piece does raise substantive issues, but they are not the ones grabbing all the attention.
Should West Virginia elect judges? Most state’s do, and West Virginia’s Constitution requires that “justices shall be elected by the voters of the state.” If we want to shift to appointed judges, we’ll have to change the constitution.
Additionally, as long as judge’s have to campaign, there will be campaign contributions, unless the state shifts entirely to public financing. Justice Allen Loughry used the public financing program successfully in 2012, but the decision is up to the candidates. Public financing also means taxpayers will be paying for the political campaigns of candidates they may strongly disagree with.
The court may want to tighten up recusal rules. Currently judges have considerable leeway in deciding whether to remove themselves from cases. Davis defends her decision not to step aside; she might have avoided this embarrassment, however, if she had put on the record anything that could be perceived as a conflict.
And finally, the jury found that the elderly Mrs. Douglas was neglected and died a shameful death, but the original award of $90 million (equal to 90 used Learjets) is an astounding amount, one that fuels the criticism that West Virginia is the home of “jackpot justice.”