Associate Justices Audrey Collins, Thomas Willhite Jr. and Brian Currey of California's Second District Court of Appeal. Courtesy photo

Three appellate court judges decided to turn their opinion in a defamation lawsuit into a "teachable moment" for an attorney who complimented the appearance of the female trial judge in the case.

In the opening paragraph of an appellate reply, the defendant, Keith Chow, and his lawyer Jan Stanley Mason referred to now-Associate Justice Gail Ruderman Feuer, who was a Los Angeles Superior Court judge at the time, as "an attractive, hard-working, brilliant, young, politically well-connected judge on a fast track for the California Supreme Court or Federal Bench."

The California Court of Appeal judges said in an opinion Nov. 22 that they would be remiss to not address the comments—not in an effort to embarrass but to instruct.

"Calling a woman judge—now an associate justice of this court—'attractive,' as Chow does twice at the outset of his reply brief, is inappropriate because it is both irrelevant and sexist," wrote Associate Justice Brian Currey of the Second District Court of Appeal, with Associate Justices Thomas Willhite Jr. and Audrey Collins concurring. "This is true whether intended as a compliment or not. Such comments would not likely have been made about a male judge."

Mason, of the Law Offices of Jan Stanley Mason in Pasadena, California, did not respond to requests for comment at the time of publication. During oral arguments, Mason said the language was intended as a compliment, according to the opinion. Despite the intention, the comment "reflects gender bias and disrespect for the judicial system," Currey wrote.

The decision also points to an Association of Business Trial Lawyers article written by Second District Justice Lee Smalley Edmon and Judge Samantha Jessner of Los Angeles County Superior Court, which noted "despite the record numbers of women graduating from law school and entering the legal profession in recent decades, as well as the increase in women judges and women in leadership positions—not to mention the [#MeToo] movement—women in the legal profession continue to encounter" discrimination.

The justices explained that objectifying or harassing a member of the profession based on gender, race, sexual preference or gender identity is uncivil and demeans the court.

"We review judgments and judicial rulings, not physical or other supposed personal characteristics of superior court judges," they wrote.

Cynthia Briganti brought the underlying defamation suit against Chow after he posted a Facebook comment calling her a convicted criminal who had stolen the identities of thousands of people. The justices affirmed the trial court's order granting Chow's motion to strike Briganti's claim of intentional interference with prospective economic advantage, but not her defamation claim. Briganti's counsel, Michael Khouri and Behzad Vahidi of the Khouri Law Firm in Dallas, did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication.

In their role as judicial officers, the justices said it was their responsibility to reduce all forms of incivility and provided a bit of a warning to future offenders.

"One method is by calling gendered incivility out for what it is and insisting it not be repeated," they wrote. "In a more extreme case, we would be obliged to report the offending lawyer to the California State Bar."