US Law Questions & Gray Flannel Suit Man

Question

In the movie, The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit, a number of legally questionable events occur. They appear to me to be improper practice but as I'm not au fait with US law on property, wills and so on then I can't be sure.

1. A man who wants to ward off a challenge to his grandmother's will goes to the local judge and seeks his advice on the matter.

   My impression is that this man should go to a lawyer; and that the judge should refuse to discuss this matter or any other that might arrive in court with anyone.

2. To prevent the conflict between the man who approached him and another man who made a similar approach on the same matter (the will challenger), the judge arranges for both parties to attend his office at an agreed time without either party knowing that the other would also be there.

   This is at the very least an interference with normal process of law. A judge should administer the law in contentious cases - not obviate it.

3. At the meeting, the judge had already investigated the background and finances of both parties through sources he does not disclose. His questioning of the two men shows a distinct bias against the will challenger despite the latter having been a servant & carer to the elderly in the final years of her life. The will challenger storms off to see his NYC attorney threatening a suit.

   Surely this is exactly the sort of scenario that any responsible judge should have tried to avoid. I am not naive about professional practice by doctors, lawyers, etc in a small town but even the the standards of the time (c. 1955) what is presented here amounts to little more than a fix-up by two members of the upper middle-class against a person who has been a domestic servant his entire life aimed to null his claim to the property promised to him on the death of the care-receiver.

4. Subsequently, the official inheritor of the property, accompanied by his wife, approaches the judge with a view to facilitating payments of $100 a month to a woman in Italy with whom he fathered a child during WW2.

   My impression is that the man and his wife could have got this monthly transfer done directly themselves via a bank or money-transfer agency; or else indirectly via an attorney, accountant or payments company if they wanted official anonymity and/or freedom from legal liability to make future higher payments in the event of a claim by the family in Italy. For a judge to involve himself in such a matter - something that could well give rise to contentious case later - seems very unwise and I would fear potentially open to charges of misuse of office.

For the record, I do not have any beef against the themes of this great movie and I felt as tearful as many others did upon viewing it. But the shabbiness of the processes involved in Tom Rath's absolution takes from the full enjoyment of the movie from both the representational plausibility and moral viewpoints.

Can anyone versed in US law comment on my concerns about judicial conduct here?

Answer 1

In many small towns in the U.S., especially in 1955, some judges in lower level trial courts are part-time judges and part-time lawyers. Indeed, even in 2024, it is common for municipal court and county court judges in rural Colorado, for example, to be part-time judges and part-time lawyers. Similarly, even in 2024, New York State has many part-time local judges in rural areas and small towns called "Justice of the Peace." Many part-time judges have part-time law practices in which they engage primary in private mediation and arbitration, as this is similar work to their part-time judge work.

In Connecticut in 1955, the lowest level court in the system was the state probate court and it is safe to guess that Judge Bernstein was a probate court judge, although not necessarily in the county where the main character Tom's grandmother had died. If the judge was a probate judge in another county, there was no risk that he would have been a judge in an actual court case arising from the will contest, if one arose.

The term "mediator" was not widely used outside the labor-management arena in 1955, few small town lawyers explicitly had a mediation practice in 1955, and explicit statutory regulation of the mediation profession was mostly not a thing yet. But, many lawyers, especially in small towns at the time, did engage in activities that we would describe today as mediation, and there was an ethical rule for lawyers at the time setting certain ethical standards when acting as a third-party neutral.

One way to interpret what happened in the Man in the Gray Flannel Suit case is that this judge was wearing his lawyer hat in the initial consultation with the person defending the will and that he undertook an engagement that we would call mediation today to bring the disputing parties together to resolve the case. The final step of seeking the assistance of the same person to set up a payment to a woman in Italy is consistent with the interpretation of the events that he was acting as a part-time lawyer.

Even back in 1955, a judge who had represented one of the parties in the case and then conducted mediation in the case, would have to recuse from the case if an actual lawsuit was filed in his court and was assigned to him as a judge. But while this chain of events could have happened, it does not appear that a lawsuit related to the inheritance dispute was ever filed in this judge's court and assigned to this judge.

It is also quite normal in mediation practice for a mediator to "beat up" on a party who has a weak case or who is being unreasonably reluctant to settle. Will challengers who are in the category of a "servant & carer" are routinely viewed with suspicion in will contests relative to a family member, so "beating up" on the party with an uphill battle should the case go to trial in a mediation session isn't inherently problematic. Unlike a judge who is neutral and relatively passive until called upon to make a ruling, a mediator generally pro-actively points out the weaknesses in each party's case to soften them up to produce a mutually agreed resolution.

This said, the spin and interpretation that I have given to these facts is a charitable one. Full time judges shouldn't have private law practices and shouldn't be engaged in this kind of activity. And, it could also be that a non-lawyer author of the book simply didn't understand the proper and customary role of a judge. But there is an interpretation of the course of events that would be ethical and fit the facts in the context of small town life in 1955 in the U.S.