Opinion ID: 186939
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Hearing Officer Bias

Text: 34 Finally, U-Haul argues the hearing officer's bias toward [U-Haul] at the objections hearing was palpable, and that bias deprived [U-Haul] of due process. As evidence of bias, U-Haul points to the hearing officer's: (1) refusal, over U-Haul's standing objection, to admit signature exemplars of witnesses who testified they had signed the Union petition; (2) statement that allowing expert opinion regarding the inauthenticity of disputed signatures was against [her] better judgment; (3) discrediting two Union witnesses whose testimony arguably supported U-Haul's case; and (4) questioning witnesses so as to reshape their testimony to U-Haul's disadvantage. 35 This claim of bias has no merit. A meritorious claim may be based either upon showing a bias or prejudice that stem[s] from an extrajudicial source and result[s] in an opinion on the merits on some basis other than what the judge learned from his participation in the case, United States v. Grinnell Corp., 384 U.S. 563, 583, 86 S.Ct. 1698, 16 L.Ed.2d 778 (1966), or, less commonly, upon showing a favorable or unfavorable predisposition . . . so extreme as to display clear inability to render fair judgment. Liteky v. United States, 510 U.S. 540, 551, 114 S.Ct. 1147, 127 L.Ed.2d 474 (1994). U-Haul points to nothing of the sort in the record of this case. On the contrary, U-Haul's specific complaints are but disagreements with some of the hearing officer's rulings. We therefore reject U-Haul's claim that it was denied due process.