The case is Pinnick v. Corboy, and it’s become somewhat notorious. As James Merriner explained in a Reader cover story on December 4, a fatal accident on an Indiana Interstate back in 1995 led the family of the young Georgia woman who’d died, Melissa Pinnick, to hire the prominent Chicago law firm of Corboy & Demetrio to seek damages. The driver of Pinnick’s car, a rented Mitsubishi, said she’d heard a thump and suddenly lost all control of the car, whose electrical system shut down as it swerved across the median strip of I-65 near Crown Point and was broadsided by a Cadillac coming the other way. Corboy sued Mitsubishi, the manufacturer of the car’s tires, and the rental agency; but the law firm failed to take custody of the wrecked Mitsubishi and it disappeared — and with it any possibility of proving the car was to blame for the accident.
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But Boyle argued that the appearance of impartiality was sullied by more than money. In addition to those “substantial financial contributions,” there were the “close and confidential relationships between Defendants and several Justices [and] Defendants’ frequent invitations to Justices to participate in social gatherings, home and office visits.”
And that being the case, the court collectively dismissed the constitutional request as moot.
