Flinging Poo in Court

I've participated in some fairly intense courtroom proceedings, but none of them ever went as far as a recent case that ended up in the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. The case was an employment discrimination action brought by the Civil Rights Division of the state's Attorney General's office against a company working on a road building project. During an eight-day hearing before an administrative law judge, things apparently got a bit, well, frayed:

The fireworks began when Goldberg, representing the Human Rights Commission, exclaimed, "Jeez."

Miller, representing the construction company: "Judge, I'm going to ask him not to use curse words during the hearing."

Goldberg: "I said Jesus. Is that a curse word?"

Miller: "Absolutely. That's taking the Lord's name in vain."

Goldberg: "I'm terribly sorry. I know how committed you are to Christian charity."

It got worse:

After that, according to the Supreme Court's transcript, Goldberg stated that Heeter's co-counsel called him a "dick" under his breath. The co-counsel denied it. Then Goldberg stated that he responded by calling Heeter's co-counsel a "jerkoff."

And, yet again, worse:

The atmosphere remained contentious until the last day, day eight, when the question of poultry excrement became an issue.

Miller: "Judge, I'd like to put on the record this morning that after I gave that (motion for contempt) to (Goldberg) that he came in the hall, threatened me, pointed his finger in my face and called me a sh-t head, and I would also like on the record what he said to my client."

Goldberg: "Judge, she's being dishonest, flat out, undeniably dishonest. I didn't threaten her. I didn't call her what she says I called her. I called her a chicken sh-t."

I admire Goldberg's honesty, at least. The upshot of all this is that the ALJ found that the company was discriminating, but the Supreme Court reversed because the ALJ failed to maintain an unbiased proceeding. Neither of the two poo-flinging lawyers appeared before the Supreme Court, BTW.

On a somewhat related note, I learned today that the Boston Massacre was triggered off when someone in the American mob, which had been taunting British soldiers with a ferocity not seen since Monty Python and the Holy Grail, shouted "go clean my shithouse." You learn something new every day.