Caperton v. Massey

Caperton v. Massey
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 3, 2009 Decided June 8, 2009
Full case name	Caperton v. A. T. Massey Coal Co.
Docket nos.	08-22
Citations	556 U.S. 868 (more) 129 S. Ct. 2252, 173 L. Ed. 2d 1208, 77 USLW 4456, 09 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 7053, 2009 Daily Journal D.A.R. 8207, 21 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 908
Argument	Oral argument
Holding
Justice Benjamin’s failure to recuse himself created an unconstitutional “probability of bias.”
Court membership
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Antonin Scalia Anthony Kennedy · David Souter Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito
Case opinions
Majority	Kennedy, joined by Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer
Dissent	Roberts, joined by Scalia, Thomas, Alito
Dissent	Scalia

Caperton v. A. T. Massey Coal Co., 556 U.S. 868 (2009), is a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires a judge to recuse himself not only when actual bias has been demonstrated or when the judge has an economic interest in the outcome of the case, but also when "extreme facts" create a "probability of bias."

In 1998, Harman Mining Company president Hugh Caperton filed a lawsuit against A.T. Massey Coal Company alleging that Massey fraudulently cancelled a coal supply contract with Harman Mining, resulting in its going out of business. In August 2002, a Boone County, West Virginia jury found in favor of Caperton and awarded $50 million in damages.

While the case was awaiting hearing in the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, A.T. Massey's Chief Executive Officer, Don Blankenship, became involved in the election campaign pitting incumbent Supreme Court Justice Warren McGraw against Charleston lawyer Brent Benjamin. Blankenship created a non-profit corporation called "And for the Sake of the Kids" in order to force McGraw off the court and replace him with Benjamin through which he contributed over $3 million in Benjamin's behalf, an amount which, if it had been contributed directly to his campaign, was about 3,000 times the maximum permissible direct contribution to an election campaign. This amounted to more than the total amount spent by all other Benjamin supporters and Benjamin's own campaign committee, Much of the money went to an advertising campaign aimed at questioning McGraw's impartiality. McGraw further damaged his campaign during a speech at the 2004 United Mine Workers of America's Labor Day rally in Racine, West Virginia in which he alleged that Republican operatives were following him "looking for ugly". The speech, sometimes referred to as the "Scream at Racine" or the "Scream from Racine" was featured in several campaign advertisements sponsored by the West Virginia Republican Party and may have played a large role in McGraw's defeat in November 2004.