Judge Aaron Bowden: 100% Asshole

[giza]

I saw this on Fark today and felt it was an exceptionally screwed up story:

Twelve days before Christmas, Circuit Judge Aaron Bowden fired his 17-year judicial assistant, who had been on leave since August with cancer.

The Jacksonville judge said he feared her prolonged illness would leave him without an assistant at a time when the state had implemented a hiring freeze.

But his decision left Christine Birch, 54, with no medical, life or disability insurance and has created a firestorm at the courthouse.

Chief Circuit Judge Donald Moran responded by calling Bowden "a no-good son of a bitch," prompting Bowden to respond with a blistering e-mail defending his decision and calling Moran's criticism irresponsible, unprofessional and unseemly.

Other judges' assistants were also appalled by Birch's firing. They raised money to pay her rent this month.

"If it can happen to one of us, it can happen to any of us," said Donna Vail, who responded to Bowden's e-mail with one of her own. "Chris Birch has been a loyal employee to Judge Bowden ... who has been terminated for strictly health issues and not for her service to her judge."

The rest of this story is available at http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/010408/met_231313469.shtml

It goes on to make it clear that her firing had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that her firing, after 17 years of service, wasn't for performance-related reasons, but because there was an upcoming hiring freeze, and the judge was afraid he wouldn't have an assistant. Except... a rotating assistant was assigned to him on a full-time basis while Birch was out on leave. Oops.

Unfortunately, she exhausted the amount of medical leave she has under federal law, and disability cases under the Florida Civil Rights Act are very hard to win in court, according to the article. I can only hope at this point that she and the judge come to some out of court settlement or something.

I'm amazed people like this still exist, let alone run our courts.

Comments

[doco.livejournal.com]

Now if there only was some kind of system in place to prevent this.... some sort of National health service... *cough*

Yeah, that should work.

[eddiddiums.livejournal.com]

I think that the B.D.I.U. committee would like to meet with him for their 2007/2008 awards.

[rexxwolfe.livejournal.com]

people can be utterly pathetic at times.

and his attitude can be summed up as...

[bikerwalla.livejournal.com]

"Let her eat cake!"

[nidonocu.livejournal.com]

c_C Such a thing would be illegal in the UK. I don't understand how much things still happen over there.

[camstone.livejournal.com]

If it's a federal court, she can file a discrimination case and totally win. He's a total jackass if even half of that story is true.

American justice... occasionally perverted, dumb and blind - and not necessarily in that order.

[wildw0lf.livejournal.com]

That's really, really bad. No one wants to have cancer LOL. You just hope that all those expensive treatments help kill off whatever it is and keep you alive for a number of years longer...And to lose health insurance because you were let go over something like that is really bad.