And you wonder why institutions lost trust
CLW (and Legal Newsline) readers know the backstory here.
Previously released public records from Oregon State University records show Distinguished Professor William Ripple thanking Multnomah County lawyer Roger Worthington for his “continued support” and other details of a mutually supportive relationship. University of Oregon records showed the Duck Athletic Fund’s development director helping establish the Roger Worthington Fund for Environmental Economics to purchase Associate Professor Keaton Miller’s time and finance a project designed to quantify Oregon “climate change” costs, and “move the needle” in the public conversation. The public being, among other things, the place where the judicial systems obtains its jurors.
One court made aware of Mr. Worthington’s modus operandi did not well receive the “lawyer’s tactic of “plaintiff lawyer’s undisclosed involvement in scientific studies… [and declared it] a “gobsmacking failure” to reveal potentially biased evidence in a high-profile climate lawsuit.”
The documents below (full production and privilege log here and here) complete the circuit: Worthington enclosed Ripple’s affidavit in a lobbying letter to Washington defending the Multnomah climate suit he prosecutes. Oregon’s congressional delegation leapt to action. Apparently the public universities supply the credentials, elected officials provide the plaintiff, the plaintiff’s lawyer supplies the money, other elected representatives run cover to protect the litigation, and the finished product returns to the lawyer’s advocacy file.
