Legal services providers that receive federal funding through the Legal
Services Corporation (LSC) routinely engage in litigation on behalf of
clients whose behavior is reprehensible. Often, the efforts of legal
services programs in these cases are directed at preventing their clients
from having to face the legal consequences of their irresponsible conduct.
This sort of legal activity, as shown in the cases below, can only serve
to encourage such behavior and is difficult to square with legal service's
basic mission of helping meet the legitimate legal needs of the poor.
Legal Aid Society of Nebraska Assists Child Abuser in Custody Battle
In a shocking case, the Legal Aid Society of Nebraska, an LSC recipient, represented a child molester attempting to gain custody of a child he had fathered through the sexual abuse of the child's mother. The molester, known in the court records as Walter R., impregnated the child's mother when he was thirty-five years old and she was twelve years old. After the mother's parental rights were terminated in 1997, Walter R. filed suit in state court seeking to gain custody of the child, a twelve-year old girl named Gloria. At trial, it was established that Walter R. had never before requested visitation with the child nor paid any child support. The caseworker assigned to Gloria expressed concern that placing Gloria with Walter R. would expose her to the same type of sexual abuse that happened to her mother. Indeed, Gloria herself expressed "revulsion" toward's Walter's sexual abuse of her mother. Both the trial court and the Nebraska Supreme Court soundly rejected Walter's attempt to gain custody of Gloria. This case presents a prime example of how legal services providers often go astray of their mission to serve the legal needs of the poor by representing clients in cases that neither meet the needs of the poor nor advance the cause of justice.
See In re Interest of Gloria F. v. Walter R., 577 N.W.2d 296
(Neb. 1998).
Legal Services Attempts to Get Unemployment Benefits for Worker Fired For Repeated Rules Violations
Westchester/Putnam Legal Services, a LSC recipient located in White Plains, New York, argued to a New York appeals court in 1997 that its client, Robert G. Limarzi, was entitled to unemployment benefits even though he had been fired for repeatedly using company equipment for personal business. The state Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board had found that Mr. Limarzi was admonished repeatedly by his employer for using the employer's computer system and stationery to write personal correspondence during working hours, a violation of workplace rules. Under state law, an employee fired for misconduct does not qualify for unemployment benefits, and both the Appeals Board and the state Supreme Court held that Mr. Limarzi's conduct on the job disqualified him for benefits. Apparently, this legal services program believes that unemployment benefits are appropriate even where employees embezzle and conduct personal business on their employers' time.
See Matter of Limarzi [Sweeney], 664 N.Y.S.2d 669 (App. Div.
3d 1997).
Legal Services Makes Constitutional Case Out of Failure to Pay Garbage Disposal Fees
In 1995, North Mississippi Rural Legal Services (NMRLS), a LSC grantee, filed a constitutional challenge to a Mississippi statute that allows local governments to operate garbage disposal services and withold drivers' license renewals from people who fail to pay disposal fees. NMRLS argued that the statute violated due process because it contained no provision requiring local governments to hold hearings before depriving people of their drivers' licenses. Although NMRLS was successful in urging the federal trial court to declare the statute unconstitutional, the court, in a November 1997 order, refused to award any money damages to NMRLS's clients in the case. NMRLS's clients had unquestionably failed to pay the fee for their garbage disposal, with the result that even a 'pre-deprivation' hearing would not have allowed them to keep their drivers' licenses. By pursuing such litigation, this federally funded legal services provider seems to be showing that a person can evade their everyday duties under the law simply by filing a constitutional lawsuit.
See Laudermilk v. Fordice, 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18307 (N.D.
Miss. November 14, 1997).