A remarkable jurist.

• Author: Jones, Charles E.
• Position: Justice Stanley G. Feldman, Arizona Supreme Court - Testimonial

As of December 31, 2002, the Arizona Supreme Court lost a most remarkable jurist. Justice Stanley G. Feldman's twenty-year tenure as one of five members of the Arizona Supreme Court contributed not only a brilliant mind but an enormous capacity for work, an understanding of the law which far surpasses the ordinary, and above all, a human compassion for people who must rely on the system simply because they lack the means or the knowledge to go it alone.

Justice Feldman was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1982 by then-Governor Bruce Babbitt. His tenure began during the beginning years of the merit selection system in Arizona's appellate courts statewide and in the superior court in Arizona's two most heavily populated counties, Maricopa County and Pima County. In 1974, the voters of Arizona wisely decided that judges who sit on these courts should no longer be placed in office in the inevitable maelstrom of contested elections. Judicial elections were perceived as having adverse impact on the quality of judges and fostered widespread political influence, largely a consequence of the demands for campaign money.

Feldman came to the court under the merit system, and because politics had been largely removed from the judicial selection process, his appointment was based on merit, not party affiliation. His tenure has been marked by participation in literally thousands of decisions. He has authored hundreds of opinions, and his impact on the jurisprudence of Arizona has been phenomenal. Opinions authored by him became legal landmarks, including, among others, Darner Motor Sales, Inc. v. Universal Underwriters Insurance Co., (1) in which doctrines pertaining to contractual bad faith in the insurance industry and the right to rely on verbal representations by adverse contractual parties were introduced, and Wagenseller v. Scottsdale Memorial Hospital, (2) which protected employees against tortious wrongful discharge or discipline in violation of the law or policy of the state.

As a judge, Feldman became a constant reflection of the Hamiltonian principle:

[C]ourts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority.... [W]here the will of the legislature, declared in its statutes, stands in opposition to that of the people, declared in the Constitution, the judges ought to be governed by the latter rather than the former. (3)...