Philip Howard’s Common Good organization has announced (Dec. 16) its second annual Gatekeeper Awards for judges who rule inappropriate litigation out of court. (For the first round, see May 12, 2004). Winners this year include:

* An Indianapolis judge who ruled against an attempt to sue a cell phone company over an accident that a driver got into while using a cell phone;

* A New Mexico judge who, citing the privileges arising from the constitutional separation of church and state, refused to allow a surviving family to sue a Roman Catholic priest over allegedly insensitive remarks at a funeral which they said implied that the deceased was headed for Hell;

* A New Jersey judge who refused to allow a suit for negligent parental supervision after a five-year-old boy accidentally collided with and injured an sixteen-month-old girl at a block party;

* A Connecticut Supreme Court judge who wrote an opinion rejecting the doctrine of “self-compelled publication” in employment law, under which dismissed workers sue over injury to their reputation arguing that, whether or not their former employer has said anything damaging about them to outsiders, they have been obliged to spread the defamatory allegations themselves in the course of explaining themselves to potential future employers (see Aug. 10, 1999).

Filed under: Connecticut, Indiana, New Jersey, New Mexico, workplace