Miles Lord
Encyclopedia
Miles Welton Lord is a former federal judge
United States federal judge
In the United States, the title of federal judge usually means a judge appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate in accordance with Article II of the United States Constitution....

, appointed to the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota
United States District Court for the District of Minnesota
The United States District Court for the District of Minnesota is the Federal district court whose jurisdiction is the state of Minnesota. Its two primary courthouses are in Minneapolis and Saint Paul...

 by President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...

 on February 10, 1966 to fill the vacancy left by Judge Dennis F. Donovan. He served as chief judge on the district court from 1981–1985 and retired in September 1985. He currently practices law in Minnesota.

Biography

Lord received his Bachelors Degree from the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...

 in 1946, and his law degree from University of Minnesota Law School
University of Minnesota Law School
The University of Minnesota Law School, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, is a professional school of the University of Minnesota. The school offers a Juris Doctor , Masters of Law for Foreign Lawyers, and joint degrees with J.D./M.B.A., J.D./M.P.A, J.D./M.A., J.D./M.S., J.D./Ph.D.,...

 in 1948. He served in the U.S. Army Air Corps from 1944–1945, and served as an Assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Minnesota in 1951. He became Minnesota’s Attorney General from 1955–1960 and a full U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota from 1961 until his appointment to the Federal bench in 1966 by President Lyndon Johnson.

He lives in Chanhassen, Minnesota
Chanhassen, Minnesota
Chanhassen is a city in Carver and Hennepin counties in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is southwest of Minneapolis. The population was 22,952 at the 2010 census....

, with his wife Maxine. His son Jim Lord served in the Minnesota State Senate and as Minnesota State Treasurer. He also has a daughter, Priscilla Lord Faris
Priscilla Lord
Priscilla Lord Faris is an American lawyer and Democratic politician. She was a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 Minnesota U.S. Senate election.-Biography:Lord Faris was born in Minneapolis to Miles and Maxine Lord...

, who ran against satirist Al Franken
Al Franken
Alan Stuart "Al" Franken is the junior United States Senator from Minnesota. He is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which affiliates with the national Democratic Party....

, in the Democratic Party primary in 2008, for the Senate seat held by Norm Coleman
Norm Coleman
Norman Bertram Coleman, Jr. is an American attorney and politician. He was a United States senator from Minnesota from 2003 to 2009. Coleman was elected in 2002 and served in the 108th, 109th, and 110th Congresses. Before becoming a senator, he was mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota, from 1994 to 2002...

. Miles Lord, Jr. (Mick) served as a top assistant to State Auditor Robert W. Mattson, Jr.
Robert W. Mattson, Jr.
Robert W. Mattson, Jr. is an American lawyer who held elective political office in Minnesota, and is also involved in various business ventures in Florida. He served one term as Minnesota State Auditor from 1975–1979, and was Minnesota State Treasurer from 1983–1987. He is a member of the...

 and later managed the business affairs of the Miles Lord & Associates law office.

Controversy

Lord had been called an activist judge. His critics accuse him of using the law as a means to make corporation
Corporation
A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...

s pay for the damages caused, both directly or indirectly, to people and to the environment.

Landmark decisions

In his first landmark and historic decision in 1973, when the Reserve Mining Company's processing plant at Silver Bay, Minnesota
Silver Bay, Minnesota
Silver Bay is a city in Lake County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 1,887 at the 2010 census. The city was founded on May 1, 1954 after previously being known as the Beaver Bay housing project...

 was dumping 47 tons of waste rock into Lake Superior
Lake Superior
Lake Superior is the largest of the five traditionally-demarcated Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded to the north by the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Minnesota, and to the south by the U.S. states of Wisconsin and Michigan. It is the largest freshwater lake in the...

 every minute, Lord ultimately forced Reserve to stop dumping the pollutants, taconite
Taconite
Taconite is a variety of iron formation, an iron-bearing sedimentary rock, in which the iron minerals are interlayered with quartz, chert, or carbonate...

 tailings. In the Reserve Mining decision, Lord said, "This court cannot honor profit over human life."

Later, he pursued the A.H. Robins Company for malpractice in issuing the Dalkon Shield
Dalkon Shield
The Dalkon Shield was a contraceptive intrauterine device developed by the Dalkon Corporation and marketed by the A.H. Robins Company. The Dalkon Shield was found to cause severe injury to a disproportionately large percentage of its users, which eventually led to numerous lawsuits in which...

 intrauterine device, which was on sale from 1970 to 1974 and caused at least 18 deaths and thousands of injuries (350,000 women have claimed injury). The trial was for the injured, as he felt the deaths were too hard to "pinpoint the responsibility".
What made this case remarkable judicial and corporate world was Lord's rebuke to the corporate heads, holding them personally accountable. To settle seven lawsuits, he made Robins' top three executive sign a $4.6 million settlement agreement and personally held them liable. The company ended up paying more than $220 million in compensation and $13 million in punitive damages to thousands of plaintiffs.

In 1980 in the case of Shyamala Rajender
Shyamala Rajender v. University of Minnesota
Shyamala Rajender v. University of Minnesota was a landmark class action lawsuit dealing with sexual discrimination at an American university. The case was filed on September 5, 1973 by Shyamala Rajender, an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Minnesota...

 versus the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...

, Lord ordered the university to desist from discrimination against women.

Judicial review

Because of his decisions in the Robbins case, a judicial review panel met to determine if there were errors on his professional and judicial conduct. Lord was cleared of wrongdoing, and went on to serve another year until his retirement.

See also

    • Abstract: – Includes full text of presiding judge Miles Lord's statement to Clairbone Robins, et al., at bottom.
    • Reviewed and summarised by:

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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