The President of the West Virginia Association for Justice says there is no need for an intermediate appeals court in the Mountain State.
“People who have studied this have all concluded that is absolutely unnecessary in West Virginia and they’ve concluded that for good reason,” Scott Blass said.
He points to a decline in appeals in recent years and reforms the state Supreme Court has made to the appeal process at no cost to taxpayers.
Blass was a guest on Friday’s MetroNews Talkline to dispute the findings of a survey those with Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse released on Thursday.
Mark Blankenship Enterprises conducted the survey for CALA. It showed 25% of those questioned strongly support and 32% somewhat support the creation of an intermediate appeals court in West Virginia.
Right now, any appeals are filed directly with the state Supreme Court.
Those with CALA claim there is no automatic right of appeal for cases in West Virginia and that hurts the state’s judicial reputation nationally.
They say legislators should look again at legislation creating the intermediate appellate court when the 2013 Regular Legislative Session opens next week.
Blass disagrees. “We do have that right. Individuals have that right. Small businesses have that right. Big businesses have that right,” he said.
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Comments
wirerowe
Fabrication my man there is not right to oral arguments at the state supreme court.
February 8, 2013 at 5:00 pm | Report comment
mntnman
There is no right to oral argument in ANY appellate Court -- it is a matter of discretion for the court -- In any event, if the appeal is strong enough, oral argument will be granted. An intermediate court will merely layer yet another appeal for big business to use to slow/delay justice.
February 9, 2013 at 12:31 pm | Report comment