Former Court Reporter Appeals Suit Dismissal Woman Had Accused Federal Judge Of Abuses Of His Judicial Power

A former court reporter who accused U.S. District Court Judge Alan McDonald of illegal abuses of judicial power is appealing the 1997 dismissal of her case by an Oregon judge.

Lawyers from two Seattle law firms representing Kathryn Blankenship, a veteran court reporter, filed their appeal brief this week with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

They say U.S. District Judge Owen Panner of Portland erred in dismissing Blankenship’s $20 million civil rights lawsuit last summer.

“Congress could not have intended that federal judges and judicial officers could … enjoy unlimited immunity for constitutional violations,” they argue.

McDonald and James Larsen, a federal court clerk in Spokane who also is named in the suit, blamed Blankenship’s lawsuit on sour grapes after she was fired in 1995 for poor work performance.

McDonald’s attorney, Walter Meyer of Yakima, was unavailable for comment Friday.

“We think Judge Panner decided the case correctly,” said Larsen’s attorney, Leslie Weatherhead of Spokane.

McDonald was Blankenship’s supervisor and he forced her to commit illegal acts, according to the new appeal brief.

The allegations included: altering court transcripts; submitting false reimbursement requests; requiring her to work on his private real estate business on court time; and ordering her to conceal information during a government audit of McDonald’s per diem expenses while on court business in Spokane and Yakima.

Blankenship disclosed some of the alleged abuses in a 1994 employment discrimination case involving another Yakima courthouse employee, and McDonald retaliated against her afterward, her attorneys say.

Blankenship, 55, spent 12 years in Spokane County Superior Court before her federal job. She worked for McDonald in Spokane and Yakima for nearly a decade, starting in December 1985.

In 1994, Blankenship was called to testify before McDonald’s colleague, U.S. District Judge Justin Quackenbush, in the wrongful termination case of Christine Mearns.

At that hearing, Blankenship claimed McDonald was using the court facilities for private business and created a hostile work environment by passing “sexual, sexist and racist” notes to his in-court clerk about people appearing in his courtroom, according to her lawsuit.

Despite Quackenbush’s assurance that she wouldn’t face retaliation, McDonald confronted her soon after the hearing, screamed at her and asked why she had “aired the court’s dirty laundry,” according to the appellate brief.

McDonald and Larsen “threatened her with loss of her job if she revealed the misconduct of Judge McDonald. They then engaged in conduct to punish her for her speech,” the appeal brief says.

Larsen offered Blankenship a transfer to Spokane - a demotion she refused. She was fired in early 1995 from her $45,000 federal job after a negative performance review in November 1994 - the first review she’d had in nearly a decade.

She is now unemployed and living in Yakima.

Blankenship filed suit Feb. 28, 1997, in U.S. District Court in Spokane. The case was transferred to Panner’s court.

After hearing oral arguments from McDonald’s and Larsen’s attorneys, Panner dismissed Blankenship’s case last August.

Panner said Blankenship wasn’t entitled to protection under a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court decision that created a private right of action for damages against federal officials who violate a person’s constitutional rights.

“The court has been cautious” about creating new remedies under the case - Bivens vs. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics - Panner said.

He ruled that Congress didn’t intend to extend the protections to a court reporter who served at the pleasure of federal judges in Spokane and Yakima.

McDonald was nominated for a federal judgeship by President Ronald Reagan. McDonald was confirmed by the Senate in 1985.

, DataTimes