Court Opinion

ID: 9719454
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:53:25.348592+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:24:10.733162
License: Public Domain

LOW, P. J.
I concur in the opinion of Justice Haning, but write separately to comment on the apparently widespread use of the term “Chinese Wall” to describe the type of screening mechanism discussed in this case. While our opinion uses the term “screen,” both the parties and the trial court used the term “Chinese Wall,” which seems to have become a term of art. I write to express my profound objection to the use of this phrase in this context.
The origin of the use of “Chinese Wall” in the context of confidentiality is unclear. Evidently, the term was casually coined in some appellate opinion, then picked up and used without question or explanation by courts and commentators. The unquestioned use of the term was perpetuated by a leading note on the subject, The Chinese Wall Defense to Law-Firm Disqualification (1980) 128 U.Pa.L.Rev. 677, which is otherwise analytical and informative. (See lead opn., fn. 2, p. 280.)
The enthusiasm for handy phrases of verbal shorthand is understandable. Occasionally, however, lawyers and judges use a term which is singularly inappropriate. “Chinese Wall” is one such piece of legal flotsam which should be emphatically abandoned. The term has an ethnic focus which many would consider a subtle form of linguistic discrimination. Certainly, the continued use of the term would be insensitive to the ethnic identity of the many persons of Chinese descent. Modern courts should not perpetuate the biases which creep into language from outmoded, and more primitive, ways of thought.
It may be sobering to recall that little more than a century ago our own Supreme Court held that persons of Chinese ancestry could not testify in court against a person of Caucasian descent. In People v. Hall (1854) 4 Cal. 399, 404, the court, speaking through Chief Justice Hugh C. Murray, declared that “[t]he same rule which would admit them to testify, would admit them to all the equal rights of citizenship, and we might soon see them at the polls, in the jury box, upon the bench, and in our legislative halls.” It is worth noting, given recent events on the American political stage, that language and attitudes once embodied in a judicial opinion would now lead to the removal of a Governor, and membership in groups adhering to those attitudes could lead to denial of confirmation for high public office.
*294Aside from this discriminatory flavor, the term “Chinese Wall” is being used to describe a barrier of silence and secrecy. The barrier itself may work to further the cause of ethics in litigation; but the term ascribed to that barrier will necessarily be associated with constraints on the freedom of open communication. To employ in this context the image of the Great Wall of China, one of the magnificent wonders of the world and a structure of great beauty, is particularly inappropriate. One can imagine the response to the negative use of the images of the Eiffel Tower, the Great Pyramid of Cheops, or the Colossus of Rhodes.
Finally, “Chinese Wall” is not even an architecturally accurate metaphor for the barrier to communication created to preserve confidentiality. Such a barrier functions as a hermetic seal to prevent two-way communication between two groups. The Great Wall of China, on the other hand, was only a one-way barrier. It was built to keep outsiders out—not to keep insiders in.
It is necessary to raise a clenched cry for jettisoning the outmoded legal jargon of a bygone time. If the image of a wall must be used, perhaps “ethics wall” is more suitable phraseology.