U.S. ChiefJustice John Roberts’ recusal last week from a case involving Pfizer in which heowns a small amount of stock may have contributed to a Supreme Court deadlock.That deadlock will allow lawsuits over Pfizer’s Rezulin diabetes drug. Robertsdidn’t take part in the case, and the court split 4-4, leaving Pfizer one voteshort of stopping the suits, according to Bloomberg.
“If you’re on the industry side,it kills you that Roberts recused himself,” Mark Herrmann, aproduct-liability lawyer at Jones Day in
Roberts’s recusal, and others thisterm, have fueled calls for the nine justices to shed their stock holdings andput the money into funds or other investments less likely to create a conflictof interest, according to the Bloomberg news report.
“They ought to be encouraged todump the whole portfolio,” Richard Painter, a law professor at the
Painter, who was President George W. Bush’s chief ethics lawyerand worked on the nominations of Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, called stockownership by jurists “a huge problem.”
Five days before the Pfizerdeadlock, the court considered the $2.5 billion punitive damage award for the1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill without Alito, an Exxon Mobil shareholder. Thecourt ruled on shareholder lawsuits with no input from Justice Stephen Breyer,69, who owned shares of Cisco Systems, the parent of a company involved in thecase.