Ex-Justice in Referee Controversy Quits Case

A retired state Supreme Court justice has resigned as a court-appointed referee in a civil lawsuit after some ethics experts criticized him for failing to disclose his recent ties to an attorney in the case.

The retired justice, Armand Arabian, said in a letter to the Superior Court dated Thursday that he quit because he feels “betrayed and abused” by those who questioned his ethics.

“I have always been an advocate of full disclosure and am troubled by this attack upon my ethics and integrity,” Arabian wrote.

The Times reported Sunday that Arabian was appointed in December by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael S. Luros to resolve pretrial disputes in a lawsuit over construction of a Palmdale office building.

One of the lawyers is R. Rex Parris, who two months earlier had been co-counsel with Arabian in an unrelated slander lawsuit before the state Supreme Court.

Citing state judicial conduct rules, some ethics experts said Arabian should have told the other lawyers in the construction suit that he and Parris had recently worked together.

In the letter, Arabian wrote that at the time of the appointment, Luros knew of his three prior contacts with Parris, including the Supreme Court slander case and two previously undisclosed cases in which Arabian served as a mediator.

Arabian wrote he understood that Parris had discussed their previous dealings at the court hearing when the appointment was made. But court transcripts do not indicate such a discussion had taken place. Arabian said in an interview last month that he was not legally or ethically required to disclose his prior relationship with Parris.

“To my dismay, I now find myself defamed and cast in a questionable light by a leading newspaper,” Arabian wrote in the letter, referring to The Times’ article.

Arabian’s office provided The Times with a copy of his withdrawal letter, but the newspaper has received no other communication from Arabian on the story.

Arabian, who charges $500 an hour as a private judge, said in the letter he would not charge the parties for the three two- to three-hour sessions that have been held in the case.

“I am of the belief that all counsel and parties in this matter have been well served. None have questioned my integrity or ability or asked for recusal. Still, I feel betrayed and abused to the point that I now resign from any further responsibilities in this case,” Arabian wrote in a two-page letter to Frank T. Jackson, supervising judge of the Lancaster court.

“If they had asked me, I would have told them anything that I remembered,” he said last month.

An employee in Arabian’s office said the resignation letter had been mailed to the court on Thursday, but a court clerk in Lancaster said it did not arrive in Friday’s mail. Arabian did not return telephone calls placed to his Van Nuys office.

Lawyers in the civil case refused to comment on Arabian’s withdrawal, while Commission on Judicial Performance and State Bar officials could not be reached.

Luros did not return a phone call placed Friday to his courtroom. In an earlier interview, he said, “If there was a conflict, I might well have considered other suggestions” about whom to appoint as a referee.

An ethics experts who criticized Arabian’s failure to disclose said Friday the 65-year-old retired jurist was doing the right thing.

“It’s the appropriate and correct thing to do, even if belated,” said Jay Folberg, a University of San Francisco School of Law professor who led a statewide Judicial Council advisory committee that studied private judging and recommended stronger disclosure standards.