Private: Who is Leslie Southwick?

On Thursday, the Senate will consider the controversial nomination of Judge Leslie H. Southwick to sit on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.  Should Judge Southwick be confirmed, he would be one of sixteen active judges on that court, twelve of whom were nominated by President Reagan or the two Presidents Bush.

After graduating from the University of Texas law school in 1975 and completing two judicial clerkships, Judge Southwick entered private practice in 1977, where he focused largely on defending oil and gas companies.  Judge Southwick served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the DOJ's civil division under President George H.W. Bush, and he served as a judge on the Mississippi Court of Appeals from 1994 until 2006. 

As a state court of appeals judge, Southwick often voted in favor of business interests defending themselves against alleged violations of state employment or tort law.  According to an Alliance for Justice report, Judge Southwick "has an 89 percent record of voting against workers, consumers and other victims in divided decisions."

Judge Southwick and Access to Justice

In Cannon v. Mid-South X-Ray Co., Judge Southwick joined only one other judge in a dissent which would have barred a victim of chemical exposure in the workplace from seeking redress.  In that case, Annie Cannon first experienced symptoms in 1983, but she did not learn that they were work related until a doctor's visit in 1993.  While eight judges held that the statute of limitations should begin to run when Cannon learned that her injuries were work related, Judge Southwick wrote that "the limitations period begins to run when the plaintiff can reasonably be held to have knowledge of the injury or disease," regardless of whether they knew or could have known the cause of the injury.

Judge Southwick on Workers' Rights

Dissenting in Dubard v. Biloxi, H.M.A., Judge Southwick expressed his personal belief that employment-at-will, the doctrine which says a worker may be fired at any time for virtually any reason, provides the proper balance of power between employers and employees:

I find that employment at will, for whatever flaws a specific application may cause, is not only the law of Mississippi but it provides the best balance of the competing interests in the normal employment situation. It has often been said about democracy, that it does not provide a perfect system of government, but just a better one than everything else that has ever been suggested. An equivalent view might be seen as the justification for employment at will.

Nevertheless, in Richmond v. Mississippi Dep't of Human Services, Judge Southwick joined a narrow majority opinion holding that a social worker was wrongfully terminated when she was fired for refering to an African-American co-worker by a racially charged term begining with the letter "n."

Judge Southwick on Gay Rights

In S.B. v. L.W., Judge Southwick joined a concurrence arguing that persons who "choose . . . the homosexual lifestyle" are less fit to raise children than straight parents:

I do recognize that any adult may choose any activity in which to engage; however, I also am aware that such person is not thereby relieved of the consequences of his or her choice. It is a basic tenet that an individual's exercise of freedom will not also provide an escape of the consequences flowing from the free exercise of such a choice. As with the present situation, the mother may view her decision to participate in a homosexual relationship as an exertion of her perceived right to do so. However, her choice is of significant consequence, as described before in the discussion of our State's policies, in that her rights to custody of her child may be significantly impacted.

More on Judge Southwick is available through the Alliance for Justice.