ACTIVIST FIRST DEPARTMENT DEPLOYED IMPROPER "SUFFICIENCY" DEVICE TO SYSTEMATICALLY REVERSE JURY VERDICTS ON AP0PEAL AS PART OF "FAVOR PARSING" SCHEME TO ENABLE CORPORATE VIOLATORS, CORRUPT JUDGES

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ACTIVIST FIRST DEPARTMENT DEPLOYED IMPROPER "SUFFICIENCY" DEVICE TO SYSTEMATICALLY REVERSE JURY VERDICTS ON AP0PEAL AS PART OF "FAVOR PARSING" SCHEME TO ENABLE CORPORATE VIOLATORS, CORRUPT JUDGES

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New York, N.Y. DECEMBER 12TH, 2011: Judicial Reform Now announced today that it had completed a “point by point” legal review of two First Department cases where the narrow provisions of Appellate review of lower court rulings were circumvented in order to justify reversals of jury verdicts on appeal. JRN compared two discrimination cases “Jordan v. Bates”, a Perceived Disability case, and “Stephenson v. Hotel Employees”, an Age Discrimination case, adjudicated by two separate First Department panels. “Bates” was reviewed by a panel where two Chief Judges were present, Judge Lippman and Gonzales, and three senior Judges, Hon. Sullivan, Friedman and Catterson, rounded out panel upon appeal by Drinker Biddle, while Judges Saxe, Andrias, Friedman, Williams and Mazzarrelli reviewed the Stephenson appeal filed by two male managers over age 50 against Local 100. Both cases resulted in verdicts for the Plaintiff. In both cases, the Employer-Defendant admitted to the discriminatory acts, and either corroborated or failed to rebut evidence that would lead a reasonable person to infer motive or intent to discriminate. In both instances the Trial Judge denied the Post Trial Motions for sufficiency of evidence (JNOV). JRN then compared these two manipulated Appellate outcomes with a “well crafted” Age discrimination Opinion filed by the Second Circuit, Binder v. LILCO 7493 cv 1994, 2nd Cir (citing “Sir Speedy v. L&P Graphics” 957 F 2nd 1033 2nd Cir. 1992), and varioius Supreme Ct & Second Ct. cases. In the LILCO case, the Second Circuit (Hon. Winter, Mahoney, Godbold) actually reversed the Trial Judge for granting “j.n.o.v” and remitted damages to double “because of the jury’s finding of willfulness”. The 2nd Circuit reviewed the case for “abuse of discretion” because the trial court sent the Jury back three times to “reconsider” its verdict in favor of the Plaintiff only to reverse the jury on the grounds of “weight of evidence”. The Second Circuit found that “The district court’s discretion is directed to the question of whether the Jury verdict is seriously erroneous”, Piesco v. Koch, 12 F 3d 332, 344045 (2nd Cir 1993). The Winter Panel found:
“We reverse the district court’s grant of judgment n.o.v. ….In ruling on a Motion for Judgment n.o.v the district court is required to deny the motion unless, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, ‘the evidence is such that, without weighting the credibility of the witnesses or otherwise considering the weight of the evidence there can be but one conclusion as to the verdict that a reasonable men could have reached”. Sir Speedy v. L&P Graphics 957 F2d 1033.

In both the Bates and Stephenson cases, the First Department Appellate Division did just the opposite. The trial court had DENIED the j.n.o.v.’s in Post Trial Motions, effectively rendering any “appeal” frivolous. Nonetheless the activist 1st Department not only considered the identical arguments on “appeal”, they rendering “credibility” findings and applied “discretionary balancing” (Id. Mazzarrelli, Stephenson) to the weight of the evidence, and improperly credited “Post Hac” employer evidence. In lay terms, the Appellate Judges substituted themselves for the jury to “retry” the case on appeal, a clear abuse of discretion. In Bates, they actually invaded a “sealed file” from another discrimination case in a vain attempt to discredit the Plaintiff.
JNR recognized these actions by the First Department as “willful attempts to “fix” the outcome of discrimination cases” and filed an Obstruction of Justice lawsuit naming the judges and the “private actors” who aided them (Corporate Defendants WPP Group and Verizon Communications and Counsel Drinker Biddle and Paul Hastings) as Defendants citing Conspiracy to Defraud, RICO, Conversion, et al.

“There were five very senior judges and two Chief Justices who sat on the Bates appellate panel: Justice Sullivan, who was retiring, Justice Gonzales, the future Chief Justice of the 1st Department, Chief Justice Lippman, who would replace Judge Kaye at NYCOA, and Justices Catterson and Friedman. There is zero chance that these five very senior justices did not know they were circumventing the narrow provisions of Appellate Review when they “fixed” the Bates case. On the Stephenson panel, Judges Saxe, Andrias, Friedman (again), Williams and Mazzarrelli, were all experienced judges. Only Judge Mazzarrelli dissented from the Majority” citing improper evidence weighting”, Kathryn Jordan, JRN President noted..

Jordan founded END-JRN when she realized the war against Discrimination was being lost in the Courts. She herself had vowed to “hold the line” on discrimination with a “zero tolerance” policy. Prior to Jordan’s 16 year ordeal on WPP, which had culminated in a Jury Verdict in 2005, and her 8 year ordeal on Verizon, a $31M claim that was unlawfully resolved by Judge Shira Scheindlin in a sham, coerced Settlement deal, Jordan had successfully litigated a 7 year gender discrimination case in NYSDHR and won the largest verdict in the history of the agency. When a strong, credible litigant takes a “zero tolerance” policy toward discrimination, trial lawyers resort to desperate acts, including libeling the Plaintiff, tactics “adopted” verbatim by careless or biased courts. Ironically, the Panel did not have to speculate about the ‘credibility” of the plaintiffs in either of these cases. The employers admitted to the discriminatory acts and the Record shows that after revealing their intention to fire the managers in these protected classes and replace them with non PC’s, that they in fact did.

JRN has published a number of press releases as to how “Case Fixing” is conducted in the NY Court System and the range of procedural situations in which it can occur, from a MTD challenge by the Employer under the guise of a “Sua Sponte” dismissal,an early “deal” to “Fix” the case for “Settlement” prior to discovery, or even a “Lay up” by defense counsel after a case is won before a Jury and a JNOV challenge denied (ala Bates, Stephenson). The Complaint against the Lippman panel alleges “tampering with evidence” and “acting as a conspiratorial enterprise”along with the Private Actors, WPP Group and DBR, and that the Second Circuit and SDNY also acted to fix the Verizon case so that it would never advance to trial. Both these cases involved “extra judicial” schemes outside the jurisdiction of Appellate Review.

While the Legislature and Supreme Court have been busy passing laws to clarify and strengthen Discrimination Laws, the First Department has been secretly subverting the enforcement of statutes like Title VII, ADA and ADEA. Without enforcement of the laws, the employers have taken increasingly greater liberties. Further, the EEOC which is the Federal Agency assigned to screen and prosecute discrimination claims, continues to find a 95% “No Probable Cause” rate while securing hundreds of millions in additional funds from the Federal Government. As END previously reported, the EEOC used $33M to dump its backload of cases without investigation or hearing. END-JRN has been particularly critical of the EEOC’s “hat in hand” policy of accepting token settlements. The average settlement of $2500 per litigant “wouldn’t even catch the attention of a low level VP in Corporate America”, Jordan said. END had vigorously advocated for “make whole” damages.

There are two ideological camps that have emerged. One is predicated on “low balling” damages to secure token hand-outs from corporate violators and as "insurance" for passage via Appellate review and the other philosophy is “zero tolerlance-make whole” propounded by END-JRN. “That’s the current law and it must be enforced completely and without “fear or favor”, Jordan said. While some of the problem lies in the inability of Appellate Judges to properly interpret the law, there is clearly a culture where “Case Fixing” has become an acceptable practice. There also appears to be a vast perceptual misconception about what goes on in the “private sector” as far as EEO matters. This is most glaringly manifested by the belief by the Lippman and Stephenson panels that if an employer cites “financial problems” as the “legitimate reason” for firing someone in a protected class, that the employer has met its burden and has “rebutted” the allegation of the Prima Facie case.

“This does not even meet the smell test much less the common sense test”, Jordan said, “If every employer out there could simply assert “financial reasons” every time they fired a protected class worker, every employer today would be exempt from liability. It’s preposterous and it reveals an underlying lack of cognitive discipline and intellectual discernment”.

Most seriously, JRN has concluded that the First Department’s role has actually added an enormous burden to the Court System’s out of control expenses, and in turn led to the recent severe cuts in administrative staff. “There is no accountability or regulation in the Court System”, Jordan said referencing the Judicial Conduct Commission’s failed performance despite large budget increases from the Judiciary Committee. “The answer does not begin with a check. It might end with one, but if you don’t define the problem accurately, you will be abusing taxpayer funds.”
Judicial Reform Now, documenting the pervasiveness of Judicial Corruption, has advocated for comprehensive judicial reform and new leadership in the Judiciary. “You cannot have Reform with the Fox guarding the Hen house or when the leadership has blatantly flaunted Judiciary Canons, or worse committed felonious acts”. Chief Judge Lippman’s appointment of Judge Rolando Acosta, one of the Defenda

More information can be found online at http://WWW.ENDDISCRIMINATIONNOW.COM

case fixing     Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman     j.n.o.v.     Judge Luis Gonzales     Judge Rolando Acosta     Judicial Conduct Commission     Verizon Communications NYC