Sherrie Graham Farver v. Dr. Kenneth Carpenter, M.D. , upheld on appeal, was a landmark April 5, 2019 jury verdict for medical malpractice.
Dr. Kenneth Carpenter committed malpractice, refused to look at medical records, failed to comply with the standard of care for psychiatric diagnoses.
The twelve-person East Tennessee jury found
Dr. Carpenter liable for misdiagnosing an ethical employee environmental health activist at K-25 "paranoid, delusional and psychotic" for supposing there were environmental problems, which left Sherrie with seven (7) times as much cyanide in her as a healthy non-smoker should have had.
Judge Scott's wise evidentiary rulings and judicial temperament were among the best anyone has ever seen in an American courtroom.
The jury's verdict sent a proverbial "message" to the Department of Energy and Oak Ridge employers about abuse of psychiatry to violate workers' human and civil rights.
I had previously reported on Judge Scott as Appalachian Observer Editor, 1981-1983.
During trial breaks, he would joke about it with me, in the presence of opposing counsel, my client and her husband.
At one stage I said, "Well, your honor, to err is human but to forgive is divine." Judge Scott responded, "Well I must be one divine SOB then!"
I learned so much in Judge Scott's courtroom.
When the Farver trial was over and the jury dismissed, Judge Scott said in open court that I would always be welcome in his courtroom. While I never got to try a case there again, I appreciated his sincerity.
I shall always remember Judge Scott's logic, clarity and dignity as a judge during the Farver trial, and his patience even with pestilential me, someone:
- from another state,
- who was trying his first jury trial, and
- who had written critical articles about Anderson County institutions in the early 1980s, including Circuit Court and Sheriff.
My articles exposed how juries were selected.
They resulted in compliance with a Tennessee law that was flagrantly ignored for years by longtime Anderson County Jury Commission Chairman Horace V. Wells, Jr, Publisher of the Clinton Courier-News, "the Dean of Tennessee Journalism."
For decades, the three-man Jury Commission -- comprised of what I termed two "jury-picking newspaper publishers" (Clinton Courier-News Publisher H.V. Wells, Jr., Oak Ridger Publisher Thomas Hill), and a retired dairyman, "Buddy" Crossno) -- illegally disqualified anyone entitled to assert an occupation exemption, without leaving the choice up to them, as Tennessee law required, stating that the exemptions from jury service were "personal to the individual."
This wholesale exclusion of entire learned occupations resulted in monochromatic juries totally devoid of teachers, firemen and other educated professionals -- juries that were far more inclined to convict criminal defendants and rot ule against plaintiffs in civil cases.
I fondly remember how Judge Scott responded to my jury-picking publisher articles by stating at a meeting of the Anderson County Jury Commission: "Mr. Slavin, the next time we pick juries here, I will have you come to the front of the courtroom" and help pick them.
He did.
And for the first time in Anderson County history, an African-American served on the Anderson County Grand Jury.
During 1981-1983, I watched trials and hearings in Judge Scott's courtroom, considering him to be one of my de facto first law professors, before I ever even thought of applying to law school.
I learned a lot by watching Judge "Buddy" Scott, along with his adversaries, District Attorney General James Nelson Ramsey and Assistant DA Janice Grabowski Hicks. I once heard Judge Scott say to General Hicks, "Go home and wash your greasy hair."
Repeatedly, Judge Scott sent General Ramsey and his assistant to jail for contempt of court, amidst a longtime feud over courthouse corruption issues. At one stage, angry over my news stories, Judge Scott told General Hicks, "I could buy you and Ed Slavin."
When Sheriff Dennis O. Trotter was arrested by the FBI in 1984, I took a bus back from Memphis to watch the arrest. I was in Judge Scott's courtroom when his court reporter and secretary, Winzle Shockley, handed him a note. He looked alarmed and swiftly adjourned court. In his courtroom that afternoon, Judge Scott said to me, "You're worse than a burglar, because you steal peoples' reputations." (A local resident later signed an affidavit for the DA's office about Judge Scott allegedly disposing of a box of documents on Warehouse Road later that day.)
Judge Scott and DA Ramsey were bitter enemies in a feud that resulted in the arrest and incarceration of the Sheriff, the indictment and suicide of the County Clerk, and a referendum and abrupt retirement of the School Superintendent.
Our Appalachian Observer newspaper covered it all. My publisher, Ernie Philips, was the DA's former criminal investigator, and a County Commissioner at the center of the controversies. His wife, Anne Phillips, was an ethical employee whistleblower of that County. Their daughter, Terry Frank, is now the Anderson County Mayor.
While Judge Scott and DA Ramsey were bitter enemies, they both helped make life better for Oak Ridge workers suffering in what my friend, retired ORNL physicist Dr. Wilfred Goode, Ph.D., once called "the largest cancer experiment in human history."
I've described Judge Scott's exemplary handling of the Farver jury trial in 1999. Also, during the 1990s, I called General Ramsey as a witness in several U.S. Department of Labor whistleblower cases, citing his statements about the chided atmosphere of fear and reluctance in USDOL administrative complaints. In retaliation, dupey DOE lawyer Ivan Boatner tried to embarrass General Ramsey in church as people exited from a wedding.
Three elected officials -- General Ramsey, Judge Scott, and Judge Scott's brother-in-law, Chancellor Allen V. Kidwell -- all worked in what William Blake would have termed those "dark satanic mills, Oak Ridge nuclear weapons plants, in their pre-legal careers. Judge Scott was an expediter at Y-12, who would go and be pestilential in another department to get materials produced.
Chancellor Kidwell was a cancer patient of my former client, Dr. William K. Reid, M.D. Dr. Reid was a fourth-generation physician, a brilliant patient advocate, and a whistleblower complainant before the U.S. Department of Labor concerning evil retaliation by Methodist Medical Center of Oak Ridge and Lockheed Martin.
As reported by CNN in 1993, the Nuclear Weapons Company Town Establishment in Oak Ridge ran Dr. Reid out of town in retaliation fo finding high levels of heavy metals and cancer in his patients and connecting it all to workplace and residential exposures from DOE pollution.
Dr. Reid faced resistance when he ordered a $30,000 surgery to prolong Chancellor Kidwell's life, allowing him to live longer and have more time with his family, with less pain. The conversation with hospital higher-ups took place in Chancellor Kidwell's hospital room, while he was in a semi-coma. Chancellor Kidwell woke up and told hospital administrators, "You do what Bill says or I'll sue you for every penny you've got."
Dr. Reid faced a sinister DOE and contractor blacklisting campaign unparalleled in American history, which even included the local Rotary Club enlisted to show a Time magazine article, blown up on a 30 foot screen, where Dr. Reid compared Oak Ridge to Bhopal, another place where Union Carbide's negligence killed people.
Yet in the belly of the beast, amidst the power of the Oak Ridge Oligarchy of Atomic Blunderers, when Chancellor Kidwell died, the Scott and Kidwell families had the moral fiber to take a stand for truth. The Scott and Kidwell families took out an ad in The Oak Ridger, thanking Dr. Reid for his professionalism in treating Judge Kidwell.
Judge Scott served on the bench for more than 26 years, from 1978 until he retired in 2005.
He grew greatly in the job, a tribute to the beauty of judicial independence in America.
And I grew to respect him greatly.
May Judge Scott Rest In Peace.
Godspeed, Judge "Buddy" Scott.
My prayers for Mrs. Mildred Kidwell Scott, Judge Scott's sister, his son, daughter, grandchildren and the rest of their family.
From Knoxville News Sentinel:
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From Knoxville News Sentinel/Gannett/Legacy.com
ames B. "Buddy" Scott
Oak Ridge, TN
The Honorable James B. "Buddy" Scott, Jr., age 83, of Oak Ridge passed away on Thursday, May 9, 2019. Judge Scott became the Anderson County Circuit and Criminal Court Judge in 1978 and was reelected every election thereafter until retirement in 2005. Prior to becoming Judge, he served as the Assistant District Attorney General for Roane, Loudon, Blount, Meigs, and Morgan Counties. In 1971, he was elected as a delegate to the State Constitutional Convention representing Roane and Anderson Counties, where he became chairman of the drafting committee responsible for writing the amendment to the Tennessee Constitution on taxation. In 1973, he became the Assistant District Attorney for Anderson, Scott, Campbell, Union, Fentress, and Claiborne Counties. In 1976 he was elected District Attorney General for the Seventh Judicial District which consisted solely of Anderson County. While Attorney General, he was instrumental in the passage of Tennessee's vehicular homicide law. He served as Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Museum of Appalachia and was Chairman of the Committee of Governmental Affairs for the Anderson County Chamber of Commerce. He was born in Charleston, West Virginia on November 7, 1935, the son of James Beveridge and Mary Ann Scott. He moved to Oak Ridge at the age of 8 and graduated from Oak Ridge High School in 1954. Following high school, he began college at The University of Tennessee after receiving a football scholarship. He graduated from The University of Tennessee School of Law in 1965. He is survived by his wife Mildred Kidwell Scott of Oak Ridge; son James K. "Jim" Scott of Knoxville, and his two sons Jack and Sam Scott; daughter Dana Pemberton (Judge Mike Pemberton) of Rockwood, and their son Michael Pemberton; and daughter Annie Duncan (Jeremy Duncan) of Knoxville, and their daughter Drew Duncan and son John Duncan. He is also survived by his sister, Frances Crisp, and many nieces and nephews. He is predeceased by his parents, sister Sally Josenhans, and an infant sister. The family will receive friends from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 16, 2019 at Weatherford Mortuary in Oak Ridge. The funeral will follow with Dr. Larry Blakeburn officiating. Burial will occur on Friday, May 17, 2019 at 11:00 a.m. at the Lawnville Cemetery, located next to Young's Chapel Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1705 Lawnville Road, Kingston, Tennessee. In lieu of flowers, the family request donations be made to the American Heart Association at www.2heart.org or 10 Glenlake Parkway, NE South Tower, Suite 400, Atlanta, GA, 30328. An online guest book can be signed at www.weatherfordmortuary.com.
Published in Knoxville News Sentinel on May 14, 2019
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