Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/739/671/454044/
Timestamp: 2019-10-22 21:10:12
Document Index: 60816023

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1', '§ 455', '§ 455', '§ 455', '§ 455', '§ 144', '§ 455', '§ 455', '§ 455']

Home Placement Service, Inc., et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Providence Journal Company, Defendant, Appellee.home Placement Service, Inc., et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Providence Journal Company, Defendant, Appellant, 739 F.2d 671 (1st Cir. 1984) :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › First Circuit › 1984 › Home Placement Service, Inc., et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Providence Journal Company, Defenda...
Home Placement Service, Inc., et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Providence Journal Company, Defendant, Appellee.home Placement Service, Inc., et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Providence Journal Company, Defendant, Appellant, 739 F.2d 671 (1st Cir. 1984)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit - 739 F.2d 671 (1st Cir. 1984) Argued May 10, 1984. Decided July 11, 1984. As Amended on Denial of RehearingAug. 28, 1984
This action was brought pursuant to sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1 and 2. Plaintiffs-appellants, Home Placement Service, Inc., et al. (Home Placement) appeal the district court judgment on three grounds: the judge's refusal to recuse himself; the award of only nominal damages against defendant-appellee, The Providence Journal Company (Providence Journal); and the allegedly erroneous calculation of appellants' attorney's fees.
Prior to the start of trial on December 23, 1980, the parties stipulated that the record, including the evidentiary objections, in a factually similar case, Homefinders of America, Inc. v. Providence Journal Company, would be made part of the record in this case.1 Homefinders was tried by the same attorneys before the same district judge (Boyle, J.) who initially heard the instant case. In Homefinders the court found no violation of the Sherman Act and dismissed the case. We affirmed, holding that the newspaper, regardless of whether it was a monopoly, had a first amendment right and reasonable business justification for refusing to accept deceptive advertisements. Homefinders of America, Inc. v. Providence Journal Co., 621 F.2d 441, 444 (1st Cir. 1980).
After hearing, the court dismissed the action in this case, holding that, "plaintiff's new evidence is a distinction without a difference .... The respective schemes of Homefinders and Homeplacement [sic] are, for purposes of this proceeding, indistinguishable." On appeal, we reversed holding that the Home Placement advertisements, unlike those in Homefinders, were not deceptive and that plaintiffs had proven a violation of sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act.2 We remanded "to determine the appropriate form of injunctive relief, if any is needed, and the amount owing in damages and attorney's fees." Home Placement Service, Inc. v. The Providence Journal Company, 682 F.2d 274, 281 (1st Cir. 1982), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 103 S. Ct. 1279, 75 L. Ed. 2d 500 (1983).
Another judge (Selya, J.) handled the case on remand, 573 F. Supp. 1423. He ruled that he would determine damages on the basis of the record in Homefinders and that there would be no new trial on the question of damages.
Although the motion itself does not specify its statutory basis, a memorandum of the plaintiffs filed along with the motion refers to 28 U.S.C. § 455(a) which provides: "Any justice, judge, or magistrate of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned."
We have construed 28 U.S.C. § 455(a) as follows:
Blizard v. Frechette, 601 F.2d 1217, 1220 (1st Cir. 1979). See also, United States v. Kelley, 712 F.2d 884, 890 (1st Cir. 1983); In re United States, 666 F.2d 690, 695 (1st Cir. 1981); Brody v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, 664 F.2d 10, 11 (1st Cir. 1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 1027, 102 S. Ct. 1731, 72 L. Ed. 2d 148 (1982); United States v. Mirkin, 649 F.2d 78, 81 (1st Cir. 1981); United States v. Parrilla Bonilla, 626 F.2d 177, 179 (1st Cir. 1980); United States v. Cowden, 545 F.2d 257, 265 (1st Cir. 1976). Other circuits have also interpreted 28 U.S.C. § 455(a) as establishing an objective-reasonable person standard. See United States v. Nelson, 718 F.2d 315, 321 (9th Cir. 1983); United States v. Dalfonso, 707 F.2d 757, 760 (3d Cir. 1983); United States v. Norton, 700 F.2d 1072, 1076 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 103 S. Ct. 1885, 76 L. Ed. 2d 814 (1983); United States v. Miranne, 688 F.2d 980, 985 (5th Cir. 1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1109, 103 S. Ct. 736, 74 L. Ed. 2d 959 (1983); United States v. Poludniak, 657 F.2d 948, 954 (8th Cir. 1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 940, 102 S. Ct. 1431, 71 L. Ed. 2d 650 (1982); Potashnick v. Port City Construction Co., 609 F.2d 1101, 1111 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 820, 101 S. Ct. 78, 66 L. Ed. 2d 22 (1980).
Because 28 U.S.C. § 455(a) focuses on the appearance of impartiality, as opposed to the existence in fact of any bias or prejudice, a judge faced with a potential ground for disqualification ought to consider how his participation in a given case looks to the average person on the street. Use of the word "might" in the statute was intended to indicate that disqualification should follow if the reasonable man, were he to know all the circumstances, would harbor doubts about the judge's impartiality.
It is clear from reading the article that a reporter and photographer from the defendant's newspaper visited the Judge's home, and there is no question that the home interview took place during the period when the Judge was in the decision-making process of a case in which the newspaper that published the article was the defendant. It is not the complimentary tone of the article that gives pause for concern so much as its setting and timing. Although we are sure Judge Selya did not realize it, he had, in effect, invited one of the parties in a case to his home during the trial of that case. This would, we think, be bound to raise a serious doubt of the court's impartiality in the mind of a reasonable person. This is not the case of an unsolicited complimentary newspaper article over which the judge has no control as in Shultz v. Newsweek, Inc., 668 F.2d 911 (6th Cir. 1982). In Schultz, a newspaper had publicly supported the appointment of a district court judge to the circuit court. In upholding the refusal of the judge to recuse herself in a libel case against the newspaper, the court noted that "[o]ne of the functions of a newspaper is to comment on matters such as appointments to public office." Id. at 919. We think there is a great difference between unsolicited newspapers' comments attacking or praising a judge and an article based on an interview at a judge's home with an employee of one of the parties to a case that the judge then has under consideration. That the reporter who conducted the interview was an old friend of the Judge only adds to the appearance of partiality. No reason was given, nor is there any apparent, why the interview and article could not have been postponed until after the case had run its course.
The only case we have found on point is Spires v. Hearst Corp., 420 F. Supp. 304 (C.D.Calif.1976). In Spires, one of the defendant's newspapers ran a complimentary article about the district judge focusing on his skiing ability and his nomination to the United States Ski Hall of Fame by a reporter for the defendant. In his opinion, Judge Hauk stated that he did not have any personal bias on prejudice for or against any of the parties in the case. The judge felt, however, that his impartiality might reasonably be questioned and disqualified himself under 28 U.S.C. § 144,4 28 U.S.C. § 455(a) and Canon 3 C of the Code of Judicial Conduct.5
We have no doubt that Judge Selya decided the issues on this case impartially, but in light of the facts that the newspaper was a party to the case, that the judge was fully aware of this at the time the reporter was invited to his home, and that at the time of the interview the judge was in the process of deciding important issues in the case we are compelled to find that factual grounds existed for a reasonable person to doubt his impartiality. We think that in evaluating the impact of the newspaper article Judge Selya allowed the speciousness of the charges relative to his relationship with Senator Chafee to cloud an objective assessment of the import of the article in defendant's newspaper. We find that recusal was required under 28 U.S.C. § 455(a). This requires a remand for a determination by another judge of the amount of attorney's fees.
There are other factors that militate against plaintiffs' attempt to have us rule that defendant conceded the entire issue of damages. Plaintiffs, either artfully or mistakenly, confuse the admissibility of evidence with its legal sufficiency. Evidence may be admissible, but may later be found in the context of the entire case to be legally insufficient. In the prior case (Homefinders) the question of damages was never reached. Defendant, therefore, never had reason to challenge its legal sufficiency in the framework of the case as a whole. This is quite different from objecting to its admissibility on the grounds of legal insufficiency. It is not unusual for a court to admit evidence and then at the conclusion of the evidence rule that it is legally insufficient. We do not think that defendant can be foreclosed from challenging the legal sufficiency of the yardstick evidence because its objection to its admission may have been semantically defective and, since there was no need to, did not question its legal sufficiency after its admission.
28 U.S.C. § 455(a) has in all material respects been enacted as Canon 3 C of the Code of Judicial Conduct
Fed. R. Civ. P. 63 provides: