Judge points to lawyer's antics in junking $1.2 million ruling

Daniel J. Chacon, Rocky Mountain News

Saturday, October 6, 2007

A judge has tossed out a $1.2 million judgment against the city of Denver, citing the courtroom behavior of lawyer Mark E. Brennan, which he called "boorish and unprofessional."

"I am chagrined that despite my continuing best efforts (to exert control over Brennan's behavior), the proverbial sideshow inexorably consumed the circus," U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn wrote in a scathing order granting a motion for a new trial.

"In over 19 years on the bench, I have seen nothing comparable," the judge wrote. "Such disrespectful cockalorum, grandstanding, bombast, bullying and hyperbole as Mr. Brennan exhibited throughout the trial are quite beyond my experience as a jurist, and, I fervently hope, will remain an aberration during the remainder of my time on the bench."

Brennan did not return a message left at his law office Friday.

The order for a new trial stems from an age-discrimination lawsuit filed against the city by former firefighter Bill Cadorna.

Cadorna was falsely accused of shoplifting a cookbook in 2002 and then fired. When the matter was cleared up and the charges against him dropped, the city refused to give him his job back.

In an interview in July, Brennan and Cadorna said that high-ranking firefighters were out to get Cadorna and used the shoplifting incident to get rid of him.

But the judge said Cadorna's story got lost in Brennan's "disgraceful" courtroom behavior.

"I must admit I was not adequately prepared for the task. Even now, some 15 months after the trial, my recollection of Mr. Brennan's conduct during the trial is preternaturally vivid," Blackburn wrote.

"Short of declaring a mistrial or incarcerating (Brennan) for contempt of court, I exhausted the traditional means to conform Mr. Brennan's conduct to the minimum required for practitioners in federal court," the judge said.

Blackburn said Brennan repeatedly made "mordaciously sarcastic" comments and that he had the "temerity to personally insult in front of the jury."

For example, in the closing of his cross-examination of a firefighter nicknamed "Lurch" who had invited Cadorna to his wedding, Brennan asked him: "Did you invite the Addams family?"

"Such sophomoric and puerile taunts are more appropriate to a grade-school playground than a federal courtroom," Blackburn wrote, saying that he's convinced Brennan's "misconduct" prejudiced the jury's verdict and denied the city of Denver a fair trial.

Cockalorum

• From Webster's New World Dictionary, Fourth College Edition: 1: a little man with an exaggerated idea of his own importance 2: boastful talk; crowing

chacond@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5099