Luzerne judge didn’t reveal ties to attorney (tip of another corruption iceberg?)

The Times-Tribune (Scranton PA) ^ | 3/15/09 | Dave Janoski

[Born Conservative]

WILKES-BARRE — Lecturing attorneys from the bench in a 2005 hearing, Luzerne County Judge Michael T. Toole reminded them of the “ethical duty” judges and lawyers have to recuse themselves in cases where they have conflicts of interest.

But Judge Toole didn’t reveal that he had his own possible conflict. He had a financial relationship with one of the attorneys appearing before him that day. After the hearing, he would rule in that attorney’s favor, court documents show. It was one of three 2005 cases involving the judge and the attorney, John D. Nardone.

Judge Toole declined to comment on his financial relationship with the attorney, revealed in financial disclosure forms he filed with the state in 2004 and 2005, his first two years on the bench.

Mr. Nardone did not return phone messages last week.

The 2005 case centered on the appointment of a neutral arbitrator in an insurance lawsuit involving an underinsured driver, a type of case long rumored in the legal community to be one focus of the federal corruption probe at the courthouse.

The Legal Intelligencer, a Philadelphia law journal, reported Friday that a Montgomery County insurance company has been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in Scranton to provide records of arbitrations in underinsured motorist cases in Luzerne and Lackawanna county courts from 2003 to the present. Officials from the company, Harleysville Insurance, could not be reached for comment.

In the 2005 case, the attorney for Farmers Insurance Group, headquartered in Illinois, objected to the neutral arbitrator chosen by Judge Toole, Kingston attorney Brian Corcoran. He argued Mr. Corcoran had named Mr. Nardone as a plaintiff’s arbitrator in four underinsured motorist cases in which Mr. Corcoran was the plaintiff’s attorney. At the time, Mr. Corcoran represented a client suing Farmers in another uninsured motorist case and had just represented another plaintiff in a case against Farmers, the company’s attorney, Robert E. Smith of Scranton, claimed. Mr. Smith declined comment on the case Friday.

Mr. Corcoran said he did not recall the 2005 Farmers case, which was settled before the arbitration panel met. He defended his impartiality, noting he had done work in the past for State Farm Insurance Co., Farmers’ co-defendant in the 2005 case.

There is no evidence that Judge Toole’s financial ties to Mr. Nardone were revealed during the case.

Controversy over the system for choosing neutral arbitrators in similar cases led Luzerne County’s judges last week to set new rules for how attorneys and judges should handle such requests.

[Born Conservative]

This is the same county where the Feds just nailed 2 county judges for a scheme in which juveniles were remanded to a detention facility, many of which shouldn't have been, and the judges were getting kickbacks.

For related threads, click on the "luzernecounty" keyword above.

[NEPA]

Same county