Corporations & Worker Rights - and Why Judicial Corruption Matters

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A

Fri, 20 May 2005 16:47:08 -0700 (PDT)

Corporations & Worker Rights - and Why Judicial Corruption

Matters

 

 

 

I've watched the Senate floor speeches discussing Priscilla Owen but

didn't know she was THIS bad....

 

The Radical, Activist Owen

 

The right wing likes to raise the roof whenever they suspect any

judicial activism on the nation's benches. Interesting, then, that

they've stayed silent on President Bush's nominee Judge Priscilla

Owen. Owen has a long record of radical judicial activism and

overreach. She has unfailingly voted to throw out jury verdicts

against corporations and denied workers recompense for job-related

injuries and unfair employment practices. Texas newspapers have flatly

stated that " Owen … seems all too willing to bend the law to fit her

views, " is " less interested in impartially interpreting the law than

in pushing an agenda " and " demonstrates a results-oriented streak that

belies supporters' claims that she strictly follows the law. " The San

Antonio Express-News summed it up: " The senate should not block a

judicial nominee simply because he or she is more conservative or more

liberal than the Senate's majority party.… But concerns about Owen go

to the heart of what makes a good judge. " Here's a look at her record:

 

BUSINESS BY THE NUMBERS: According to an old saying, the customer is

always right. For Owen, the opposite is true. The consumer is always

wrong and the big corporations are always right. According to Texas

Watch, since her election to Texas's top court in 1994, Owen has sided

with business interests over the victims in every single one of 175

cases in which the court decided against consumers. In the 68 cases in

which the court ruled in favor of the consumers, Owen dissented 22 times.

 

ENRON: In Enron Corp. v. Spring Independent School District, Owen

ruled in Enron's favor on a tax matter. Enron saved $225,000 and the

school district lost money. Owen had received $8,600 in campaign

contributions from Enron prior to writing the opinion.

 

HALLIBURTON: The Alliance for Justice reports that in the case of

Sanchez v. Halliburton, a Halliburton field worker named Carlos

Sanchez " won a $2.6 million verdict after the jury found that a

company supervisor had framed him to test positive for cocaine. " An

appeals court overturned the verdict; Sanchez tried to bring the case

to the Texas Supreme Court. In the months during which the case was

before the Court, Halliburton made its only campaign donations to the

Texas Supreme Court that year, and gave thousands of dollars to three

justices: Priscilla Owen, Nathan Hecht, and Alberto Gonzales. Result:

the court declined to hear the case and the ruling overturning

Sanchez's case stood.

 

FORD: GTE SOUTHWEST: In 1999, three female GTE employees sued their

employer, Bruce Shields, for abuse. The women testified Shields would

physically charge at them, tape humiliating notes to their shirts,

curse at them, and make them scrub the floors on their hands and knees

(even though the company had a professional cleaning service.) The

Texas Supreme court ruled Shields had created a " workplace that was a

den of terror for the employees. " The decision was unanimous save one

justice: Priscilla Owen.

 

UNIVERSE LIFE INSURANCE: Owen also joined a dissenting opinion that

sided with a big insurance company which refused to pay for a woman's

heart surgery. The majority affirmed the jury's award of actual

damages for the woman and said Owen's view " would take the resolution

of bad-faith disputes away from the juries that have been deciding bad

faith cases for more than a decade. "

 

THE ACTIVIST: People for the American Way has documented that, while

he was her colleague on the Texas Supreme Court, now-Attorney General

Alberto Gonzales criticized Owen's judgment 11 times in less than two

years. He charged her with ignoring the legislative intent of laws and

struggling to manufacture pre-determined outcomes. In one particular

case, he called her decision an " unconscionable act of judicial activism. "

 

FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES: Owen has close ties to right-wing Svengali

Karl Rove. Rove helped Owen get her first judicial position in 1994,

raising nearly a million dollars – $926,000 – for her judicial

campaign. In return, he received over a quarter million – $247,000 –

in consulting fees from her campaign.