On Oct. 19, President Barack Obama signed into law bills naming three federal courthouses. They include one scheduled to open in 2010 in El Paso, which will have as its namesake Albert Armendariz Sr. , former judge for El Paso’s 8th Court of Appeals. A respected civil rights advocate, Armendariz died in 2007 at the age of 88. He had spent more than half a century in the law, distinguishing himself as an advocate for equal rights for Hispanics and helping to raise money for a civil rights victory in Hernandez v. Texas . In that 1954 case, the U.S. Supreme Court found that Hispanics were a distinct class deserving of 14th Amendment protections. Vincent Perez, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, whose district includes El Paso, says the congressman submitted a bill to rename the courthouse after Armendariz in April. But Reyes began planning for the legislation earlier in the year, Perez says. The congressman received support and help from other lawyers in El Paso and the judge’s son, solo Albert Armendariz Jr. , Perez says. The son formerly practiced law with his father and could not immediately be reached for comment. But he told the El Paso Times, “It’s a wonderful honor for the family and the community. It’s a recognition of all the great work he did throughout his life, primarily through the courtroom.”
5th Circuit Spat
It doesn’t happened often — at least not in opinions — but moderates and conservatives on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals clashed in a big way in Huss v. Gayden, et al. , an Oct. 15 denial of a panel rehearing and rehearing en banc motion in a medical malpractice case appealed from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi. The case — in which a woman won a jury verdict after alleging the defendants negligently administered the drug Terbutaline to her, which caused cardiomyopathy, a condition that crippled her for life and shortened her life span — has been considered several times at the 5th Circuit. A divided 5th Circuit three-judge panel ultimately poured out the plaintiff’s win because defense expert witness testimony on specific causation was not allowed at trial after the trial judge applied 5th Circuit principles, according to a dissenting opinion by Senior Judge Patrick Higginbotham . A majority of 5th Circuit judges have refused to rehear the case en banc. “Our court’s unwillingness to correct the panel error drops the gate, and belies the role of the en banc court; it will and should be read as a rank preference of defendants in malpractice cases — a heavy thumb on the scale in the critical area of expert testimony,” wrote Higginbotham, one of the court’s leading advocates of protecting jury verdicts. “Trials of civil cases are disappearing in federal courts. Litigation is fleeing the courts. Much is being written about this phenomenon and why it is occurring. To those students I say: read this case,” Higginbotham concluded. Judge Priscilla Owen , who endured a grueling Senate confirmation process in 2003 after Democrats opposed what they characterized as her conservative record of ruling for defendants, responded to Higginbotham’s dissent. She wrote in her concurring opinion that the exclusion of part of the testimony of the defense expert, Dr. Reddix, was error. “I respectfully submit that the panel majority’s opinion is clear that the exclusion of Dr. Reddix’s testimony was error because it addressed general causation and that Dr. Reddix was qualified to offer general causation testimony,” Owen wrote.
