Name: Caperton v. Massey Coal
Facts: Hugh Caperton filed a suit against Massey Coal in 1998, for the charges of falsified concealment, forged misrepresentation, and tortious interference. The state court in West Virginia adjudicated against Massey Coal and made the company pay $50 million for compensations to Caperton. West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals granted review of the case, Caperton filed for the motion that Justice Brent Benjamin removed himself from the case due to the $3 million dollar donation to Justice Benjamin’s campaign when running for Supreme Court of Appeals seat. Judge Benjamin’s participation in the case was stated to be “constitutionally unacceptable appearance of impropriety”. Motion denied and case was to be dismissed. …show more content…
Massey Coal case, there will now be other cases now where petitioners will argue that the judge was being biased. This case will be used as support to prove how in other cases the judges were acting in a biased manner no matter how unjustified the accusations may be. Although judges are mandated to take an oath to advocate the law, it has been proven in a couple circumstances that judges have to recuse themselves in when there is a financial interest in the judgment of the case. There needs to be a more specific standard of guideline of the method in which a judge needs to recuse himself. The courts ruling about this case tells that although judges are under oath they sometimes over look the fact about not being biased and could rule a biased decision. This case support the fact that the method of choosing judges can never be perfect. Judges have to run for the seat on the Court of Appeals and they need sponsors will in lieu is basically money from lawyers that will probably one day stand in front of them in court. The method of selecting judges is faulty as shown in this case but there seems to be no other method, or the Court has sought no other method. The case can have some effects on political contexts too because judges giving biased rulings could possibly cause the big companies to win cases every time due to the fact that they can sponsor or donate millions to the judges campaign. This type of system would go against all rules of the Court about not being biased and etc. In this case, the ruling given has the possibility of having a ripple effect on other case in which petitioners may say the judge on their case has acted in a biased manner in giving the ruling of the