Cross-posted at BloggingForMichigan.com.
Last November, the Michigan Democratic Party pulled off a five-star upset special when Judge Diane Hathaway defeated Chief Justice Cliff Taylor. Hathaway beat long odds because in Michigan, justices of the high court are elected on a non-partisan ticket and incumbents are designated as such on the ballot.
Bad as he was, Taylor wasn't the worst member of a court that a University of Chicago study recently ranked as the nation's worst. That distinction belongs to Justice Robert Young.
Last year, Michigan Lawyers Weekly asked lawyers who practiced before the state's high court to name the best justice. Justice Michael Cavanagh led with 45%, followed by Justice Marilyn Kelly at 43%. Justice Young and Chief Justice Taylor tied for last place with 1%.
Now another edition of the Michigan Lawyers Weekly rankings is out.
Once again, Justice Young finds himself in the cellar. The rankings, based on a survey taken late last year, gave Justice Young a 2.85 rating on a 1-to-5 scale for overall performance. Taylor was second-worst at 2.91, followed by fellow conservative Maura Corrigan at 2.99.
The most telling number in the poll was Young's rating for open-mindedness. Young earned a 2.43 rating, well below the next-lowest justice, Cliff Taylor at 2.64.
Then again, a low score for open-mindedness earns Justice Young accolades in the right-wing legal establishment. Young, along with Taylor, Corrigan, and Stephen Markman, have links to the Federalist Society, the same farm system that gave us many of George W. Bush's judicial appointments. In fact, Young recently chaired a panel discussion on eminent domain at a Society function at the University of Michigan law school. He's got expertise in that area: he wrote the Court's opinion in Wayne County v. Hathcock, which sharply curtailed eminent domain in Michigan.
Who is Justice Young? He's the former chief counsel to the Auto Club of Michigan. When it isn't sending out the occasional Triptik, the Auto Club is an insurance company. Lansing trial attorney David Mittleman points out that Young has ruled in favor of insurance companies 80 percent of the time since he joined the court in 1999.
Mittleman has also compiled a Justice Young highlight reel, which includes the following:
• Young ruled to protect wrongdoers against lawsuits by women who were raped or sexually harassed on the job.
• His decisions have made it harder for unions to organize and bargain.
• He voted to uphold Michigan's only-one-of-its-kind drug industry immunity law, under which those injured by the side effects of FTC-approved medications can't sue.
• He voted to restrict workers' compensation benefits.
• He ruled in favor of drunk drivers by making it harder to hold them accountable for the deaths, injuries, and damage they cause.
• In a classic instance of judicial activism, he changed Michigan law by blocking citizens' rights to take action to protect the environment.
• He voted in favor of a modern-day poll tax–namely, a law requiring voters to present a photo ID.
• One of his rulings has gutted the Michigan's Consumer Protection Act, which was considered one of the nation's best when it became law in 1976.
• And if Young is still on the court in 2011, he gets a say in how the state's legislative districts are drawn. Democrats are hoping to undo the GOP gerrymander that followed the last census.
Detroit attorney Mary Ellen Gurwitz sums up the jurisprudence of Justice Young and his conservative colleagues:
[T]he way to understand this Court's work, and to predict how it will decide cases in the future, is not to analyze or explain the law as lawyers are trained to do, but simply identify the litigants....The principles which appeared to underlie the Court's decisions are these: unions lose, personal injury plaintiffs lose, civil rights plaintiffs lose, workers'-compensation claimants lose, criminal defendants lose, insurance companies win, corporations win, Republicans win.
One more item about Justice Young. He comes off as unbelievably arrogant. Take a look at his interview on WKAR-TV"s "Off the Record", which aired on January 9 of this year.
Justice Young is up for re-election, and the Michigan Democratic Party has targeted him. To paraphrase Branch Rickey--a Michigan Law School alum, by the way–Young's defeat would be "addition by subtraction" for the state's high court.