He was my friend and mentor, and he helped make this planet a better place.
Judge Litt was a champion of worker rights who wrote decisions that vindicated worker rights to non-discriminatory workplaces and honest labor unions.
Judge Litt was a vigorous defender of judicial independence who helped persuade Congress to abolish a dangerous federal agency, the Administrative Conference of the United States, which sought to erode judicial independence and institute performance appraisals, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946.
Administrative law judges are the "hidden judiciary," deciding cases on a broad range of issues from Social Security disability to securities fraud.
Judge Litt was born of Russian-Jewish parents who escaped from Stalinist Soviet Union, first to Cuba and then to Baltimore, where he was born. His parents grew up in the same shtetl.
Judge Litt started Cornell at age 16, initially majoring in agronomy to please his father, with the idea he would go to Israel and make the desert bloom. He graduated from Cornell, then went to Columbia Law School, graduating in the same class as Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1958. Because he was Jewish, no "white shoe" law firm in Baltimore would hire him. This resulted in his going to work as a government lawyer for the Interstate Commerce Commission, where he excelled at appellate litigation, with at least 70 briefs and oral arguments defending ICC in regulatory and tort matters, from trucking and railroad cases to torts involving automobile wrecks by ICC inspectors.
Judge Litt went to work as an Administrative Law Judge at the Federal Power Commission (now Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) in 1970, writing complex regulatory matters involving oil and gas pipelines. In one case, he called seven economists to testifying simultaneously, making for a clear record on appeal, asking questions of each one in response to the others.
Judge Litt was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to be Chief Judge of the Civil Aeronoutitics Board in 1977, once telling the General Counsel he needed to be "sent back to Harvard for retreading" for his tendency to want to violate airlines' Due Process rights in the era of deregulation.
In 1979, President Jimmy Carter named Judge Litt to be Chief Judge of the U.S. Department of Labor, where he hired some 100 judges to decide worker rights cases, ranging from workers compensation (for coal miners, longshore and harbor workers, offshore oil workers and military base workers) to whistleblower cases, wage cases and union rights cases.
Under Judge Litt, DOL OALJ grew swiftly, with offices in Washington, D.C. (34 judges), with the balance in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, California and Florida. He was a hands-on manager who walked the halls and cared about his employees -- all 200 of them. With a $25 million annual budget, he used computers to track litigation and monitor costs and delays, sometimes coaxing slowpokes, like the time he told a delay-prone ALJ, "I want 30 cases!"
Judge Litt promised U.S. Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) 10,500 Black Lung cases annually, and he delivered. A long backlog in decisions was solved. Judges conducted fair Due Process hearings on the record with court reporters, patiently listening to miners' testimony about their employment and declining health. Many families in Appalachian and Western coalfields owe their financial survival to receiving decisions that had languished in bureaucracy since the adoption of the Black Lung Bnefits Act.
Judge Litt attracted loyal support staff, creating a new job title for judges' secretaries ("legal technician") with higher pay than at other agencies.
In 1986, Judge Litt decided the 14-year-old case of Women United v. Harris Trust Bank,
involving systemic sex and race discrimination by a Chicago bank, with some 300 women winning $14,000,000 in backpay and promotions. In August 1990, Judge Litt and I were in the front seat of a shuttle bus during the ABA Annual Meeting in Chicago. I brought up the Harriss Trust Bank case as we passed a Harris Trust Bank branch. Just then, a Chicgo-area lawyer behind us introduced himself, shaking Judge Litt's hand -- the man's wife was one of the Harris Trust Bank plaintiffs. For years, she would spend six months training recent white male college graduate in banking, after which they were promoted to be Vice Presidents and became her boss.
In the midst of the Reagan-Bush Administrations, Judge :Litt protected the integrity of worker rights adjudications from political pressures. In 1993, the DOL Inspector General found that final decisions in environmental and nuclear whistleblower cases and pattern and practice race and sex discrimination cases were intentionally delayed under successive Secretaries of Labor. The Office of Administrative Appeals in DOL, headed by former Tennessee Valley Authority lawyer M. Elizabeth Culbreth, was ordered not to present final decisions in environmental and nuclear whsitleblower cases and pattern and practice race and sex discrimination cases for final decisions. DOL in 1996 created a dodgy board to take over administrative appeals. There was no rule making. There was no statute. There was simply a "Secretary of Labor Order," signed by the autopen or staff of Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, who later said in an e-mail that he did not know of the creation of the Administrative Review Board. Politically appointed ARB members were not confirmed by the Senate, not appointed by the President, and not vetted by the FBI.
Judge Litt did not hesitate to speak his mind, whether in decisions or in the news.
He told The New York Times in 1989 about pressures on Administrative Law Judges in the Social Security Administration, where U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) once said Judges were sent to "remedial judging school" for deciding too often in favor of disability claimants, and where SSA would refuse to obey binding precedents of U.S. Courts of Appeals, with SSA political appointees terming their contempt for the Rule of Law with a new term: "intracircuit nonacquiesence." Pro se disability complainants and some lawyers did not know of this scheme, but ALJs did and fought it, with one ALJ who had clerked for Justice Robert Jackson, Mel Cleveland, working with Judge Litt and me to expose it.
One New England SSA ALJ who had been pressured with petty workplace retaliation had enough, decking a supervisor. Judge Litt hired him as a DOL ALJ, where he had a long and distinguished career, free of the stench of corruption that afflicts other agencies.
Judge Litt leaves one offspring, Marcia, and his second wife, Judge Jeanne F. Greene, a retired EPA ALJ, who was one of the victims of agency oppression. She brought an environmental whistleblower case against EPA, a case that was seemingly "fixed" when Judge Litt's successor, John Michael Vittone, contracted with HUD, which provided a pro-agency judge who was cruelly unfair.
Judge Litt hired me in 1986. When the hiring committee saw my resume, four judges voted yes and three law clerks voted no. Deputy Chief Judge E. Earl Thomas took my resume to Judge Litt, who saw my investigative reporting background and decided, "We need someone like to raise hell around here."
Indeed, I did. First as a clerk, 1986-1988, then later as Legal Counsel for Constitutional Rights at the Government Accountability Project and as an attorney in private practice, where I challenged won reversals of unfair ALJ decisions. On the ARB's first day issuing decisions, both were in my cases, one uphold environmental crimes investigators' rights, reversing two ALJs, and the other engaging in what Judge Litt called "atomization" and "flyspecking nitpicking," reversing a landmark decision in Varnadore v. Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
In retirement, Judge candidly told the New York Times his opinion of the Varndore case after Mr. Varnadore died, and he candidly told me he suspected bribery.
Judge Litt testified in my defense at a Tennessee disbarment hearing that cleared me in 2003, later writing a column in the St. Augustine Record defending me and criticizing the Tennessee courts for reversing their own Bar panel in a decision redolent of bias and conflict of interest.
Judge Litt was noted for his wit and common sense, and ability to see to the heart of legal and personal matters. When I told him that our friend, Clinton, Tenn. lawyer David Stuart -- a descendant of Civil War Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart, scion of a civil rights advocating Presbyterian minister --converted to Judaism, Judge Litt said, "Well, it's about time!"
Defender of worker rights and administrative law judge independence against agency pressures and case-fixing. Provided safe harbor for tens of thousands of worker rights cases in the midst of the Reagan-Bush Administrations.
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Nahum Litt, the chief administrative law judge at the ... Administrative Law Judges , claimed in an appeal to .... Haynes calls the story that he paid for a filing.By Nahum Litt. Like beauty ... The Illusion of Independence of Federal Administrative Law Judges. Continued on ... fected by the administrative rules, this article will provide a brief sketch of ...... would, and should, cover that process. Finally, it is ...Feb 5, 1989 - This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before ... The 1,100 administrative law judges, who were called hearing officers ... said Nahum Litt, the Labor Department's chief administrative law judge.Member of ABA House of Delegates who helped pass resolutions supporting ALJ independence, Gay rights, corporate whistleblower protection and security clearance due process (during 1988-91)Gay rights resolution passed after three prior defeats!Author of landmark 1986 Harris Trust Bank pattern and practice sex and race discrimination case, which had languished for 12 years
Chicago Bank to Pay $14 Million In Resolving Discrimination Case
Dec 25, 1986 - The decision by Judge Nahum Litt late Monday is the second such ... has ruled that the Harris Trust and Savings Bank of Chicago is guilty of ...Jan 11, 1989 - The announcement Tuesday of the order by Nahum Litt, chief ... government from a single employer, Harris Trust and Savings Bank of Chicago ...Mar 9, 1988 - The judge, Nahum Litt, ruled that the Harris Trust and Savings Bank will owe the back pay to women and minority employees on its payroll from ...Dec 25, 1986 - An administrative law judge has found Harris Trust and Savings Bank of ... placement and salaries,'' Nahum Litt, the judge, said in his decision.Wrote landmark decision upholding federal employee union member rOpposed intentional delays in final decisions by Republican Secretaries of Labor in environmental an nuclear whistlelbower and pattern and practice race and sex discrimination cases.(more -- link re 1993 IG report to follow)On September 13, 1995, a House-Senate conference committee voted to terminate ... as: Justices Stephen Breyer, a Conference member, and Antonin Scalia, ...Charles P. Rippey, of the Office of Administrative Law Judges, was a leader of the opposition: "The ACUS recommendations for the federal administrative ...Recommendations on the Administrative Judiciary. By Brian C. Griffin and Gary J. Edles. 41. Reply to ACUS. By Charles P. Rippey. JAD AND CONFERENCE ...by RL Sippel - 1997 - Cited by 5 - Related articlesDec 10, 1992 - See also, Charles P. Rippey, Undermining the ... Critiques ACUS Draft Report on the Federal Administrative Judiciary, THE FEDERAL JURIST.Nov 2, 2015 - the ACUS Report. Vol. 31, Issue 4 (Fall. 1992), pp. 31, 46–47. 1993. Charles P. Rippey. Undermining the. The Judges' Journal,. Administrative.Search Results
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ACUS's central conclusion-which Judge Rippey never ad- dresses-was that agencies were reluctant to hire ... Rippey argues that "there is little doubt that there.Born August 3, 1935, died March 17, 2019,Survived by his wife, Judge J.F. Greene, and his daughter, Marcia Litt
More information: https://prabook.com/web/nahum.litt/918057Named by Jimmy Carter to be Chief Judge of Civil Aeronautics Board at 40 (1977-79) and Chief Judge of U.S. Department of Labor at 42 (1979-1994)Hired some 100 judges to decide Black Lung, Longshore, whistleblower and other cases under some 34 labor lawsEight offices in DC and around the nationDecided some 10,500 cases per year at peakEngineered raises for support staff by creating new job titleHelped convince Acting Labor Secretary of Labor to undo illegal firing of union steward at USDOL BRB (one phone call)Defender of judicial independence, particularly Social Security Administration, against pressures from Reagan-Bush AdministrationsGrew up in Baltimore inner cityParents escaped from Russian shtetl, moved to Cuba, then to USA, ran small grocery storeLost 30 relatives in HolocaustSupporter of Israel, sister lives thereStarted Cornell at age 16, at first majoring in agronomy to please his father,Graduated Columbia Law School in same class as Ruth Bader GinsburgInterstate Commerce Commission appellate lawyer with some 60-70 reported casesFederal Power Commission Administrative Law Judge on complex regulatory cases at age 33Wrote blog about corruption in New Smyrna Beach, Florida in retirementAvid birdwatcher, wrote witty ABA Judges Journal article (Judicial Aviary) about judges' working styles and personalitiesHelped persuade Congress to expose and abolish unaccountable , corporate and government lawyer dominated Administrative Conference of the United States, which sought to inflict mandatory arbitration on litigants, gut FOIA, gut Sunshine and require performance evaluations for ALJs. ACUS was once a "sacred cow," which ceased to exist from 1995-2010, over objections from Judge Litt's friends Antonin Scalia and Stephen BreyerFrom: marcia litt <marcia.litt@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, April 15, 2019 2:15 PM
To: Ed Slavin
Cc: sandomir@nytimes.com; waltbog@nytimes.com; Fidell, Eugene; Greenhouse, Linda
Subject: Re: Chief Judge Nahum Litt: Defender of worker rights and administrative law judge judicial independence (corrected)Hi, all -Sorry about being so far off grid these last couple days.I think what NYTimes might find of note about Judge Nahum Litt is his motivation toward fairness and justice and more importantly his actions toward same. You can see that in some of the resolutions he helped get passed at ABA (gay rights, whistleblower rights) and the fact that he greatly expanded the number of judges for his agency in order to better address the backlog of black lung cases.He was well known on the Hill and so far as I know managed to bring in more funding than any of his predecessors. He resisted pressure on his judges to decide cases, or even to time them. I don't know who might be left from the Kentucky and West Virginia delegations (majority of the black lung cases) but when attempts to intercede were made he made clear he'd work to get a judge out there in a timely manner but wasn't going to let the call from a rep delay somebody else's case. He even created a position to take such phone calls so that it would be less clear who was asking which favors. (Ed can fill in a little on that. )A different hook would be the story of ACUS, a whole agency that Ed and my father quietly worked to get defunded.Ed mentions Dad knowing Scalia and Breyer; my memory is that he and my stepmother were somehow involved with Breyer's nomination.On Fri, Apr 12, 2019 at 9:04 PM Ed Slavin <easlavin@aol.com> wrote:Dear Rich:Thank you! Will do.Cheers!With kindest regards, I am,-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Sandomir <sandomir@nytimes.com>
To: Ed Slavin <easlavin@aol.com>
Sent: Fri, Apr 12, 2019 7:15 pm
Subject: Re: Chief Judge Nahum Litt: Defender of worker rights and administrative law judge judicial independence (corrected)EdYou can add more information but the time to persuade is about gone. He died nearly a month ago and we don’t have a big enough staff to handle the load of the more current obits. Like I said,you can try but it isn’t likely to persuade the editors.Sorry to say he wasn’t a federal judge but our judge obits are usually for district court judges and up.Good luckRichSent from my iPhone
On Apr 12, 2019, at 6:40 PM, Ed Slavin <easlavin@aol.com> wrote:One correction in bold underline italics belowThank you!With kindest regards, I am,-----Original Message-----From: Sandomir, Richard <sandomir@nytimes.com>To: Ed Slavin <easlavin@aol.com>Sent: Fri, Apr 12, 2019 6:02 pmSubject: Re: Chief Judge Nahum Litt: Defender of worker rights and administrative law judge judicial independencegot it. thanksOn Fri, Apr 12, 2019 at 6:01 PM Ed Slavin <easlavin@aol.com> wrote:Dear Mr. Sandomir:
Marcia's birthday, she has been off-grid today.More later.Thank you again for the wonderful Ed Westcott obituary!With kindest regards, I am,-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Slavin <easlavin@aol.com>
To: marcia.litt <marcia.litt@gmail.com>
Sent: Fri, Apr 12, 2019 4:54 pm
Subject: DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT
Chief Judge Nahum Litt:Defender of worker rights and administrative law judge judicial independenceMember of ABA House of Delegates who helped pass resolutions supporting ALJ independence, Gay rights, corporate whistleblower protection and security clearance due process (during 1988-91)Gay rights resolution passed after three prior defeats!Author of landmark 1986 Harris Trust Bank pattern and practice sex and race discrimination case, which had languished for 12 yearsNamed by Jimmy Carter to be Chief Judge of Civil Aeronautics Board at 40 (1977-79) and Chief Judge of U.S. Department of Labor at 42 (1979-1994)Hired some 100 judges to decide Black Lung, Longshore, whistleblower and other cases under some 34 labor lawsEight offices in DC and around the nationDecided some 10,500 cases per year at peakEngineered raises for support staff by creating new job titleHelped convince Acting Labor Secretary of Labor to undo illegal firing of union steward at USDOL BRB (one phone call)Defender of judicial independence, particularly Social Security Administration, against pressures from Reagan-Bush AdministrationsGrew up in Baltimore inner cityParents escaped from Russian shtetl, moved to Cuba, then to USA, ran small grocery storeLost 30 relatives in HolocaustSupporter of Israel, sister lives thereStarted Cornell at age 16, at first majoring in agronomy to please his father,Graduated Columbia Law School in same class as Ruth Bader GinsburgInterstateCommerce Commission appellate lawyer with some 60-70 reported casesFederal Energy Regulatory Commission Administrative Law Judge on complex regulatory cases at age 33Wrote blog about corruption in New Smyrna Beach, Florida in retirementAvid birdwatcher, wrote witty ABA Judges Journal article (Judicial Aviary) about judges' working styles and personalitiesHelped persuade Congress to expose and abolish unaccountable , corporate and government lawyer dominated Administrative Conference of the United States, which ceased to exist from 1995-2010, over objections from his friends Antonin Scalia and Stephen BreyerBorn August 3, 1935, died March 17, 2019,(more)With kindest regards, I am,Sincerely yours,
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