THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 15, 1995 TAG: 9501170444
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MYLENE MANGALINDAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 315 lines
We have a coonskin cap, but can we pioneer? Can the Court do the extraordinary or are we limited to convention?
- Opinion of Judge Hal J. Bonney Jr. in NationsBank of Virginia N.A. v. Lake Ridge Associates
In the recesses of 600 Granby St., in a corner courtroom on the fourth floor of the Walter E. Hoffman U.S. Courthouse in Norfolk, presides a ruddy-faced, bulb-nosed bespectacled man whom lawyers and court clerks believe they know.
Attorneys set their watches by his punctuality, anticipate his reprimands for unbecoming behavior and ponder the literary allusions in his judicial opinions that quote the likes of Thomas Paine and Shakespeare.
Court clerks recognize him as the gracious federal bankruptcy judge who spreads holiday cheer by ringing jingle bells in the hallowed halls. They also abide by his eccentricities, such as using pens of only certain colors.
Friends have heard his jokes and some have even seen his two tattoos, recently applied to his right arm.
Outside the courthouse, on the streets of Norfolk, some alcoholics know him as the man who snatched away their whiskey bottles and smashed them.
Church-goers and radio listeners have experienced his Bible-thumping Sunday school lectures and firm handshake.
He has been called ``the gospel in action.''
Few see all sides of the complex 65-year-old judge. Eclectic is too simple a word.
After nearly 25 years of straightening out the financial matters - and lives - of business and people, Judge Hal J. Bonney Jr. is leaving the bench. On Feb. 28 he retires his U.S. Bankruptcy Court Eastern District of Virginia gavel. A STRONG SELF-IDENTITY
Because he is so reserved and businesslike in court, few people know much about Bonney's whimsical, eccentric side. Ever courteous, he often displays his gregarious, good-humored personality outside the courtroom.
A look around his chambers reveals a glimpse at one of his dearest interests: his family. Two large photographs of his dogs - Princess, a stray black poodle, and Euphee, a reddish-blond Pomerian - flank both sides of his doorway. When asked about his dogs, whom he cared for devotedly, friends say, he grows more animated and smiles.
``They're better-looking than the children,'' he said, slyly.
He also proudly displays photographs of his two sons, whom he raised himself since 1977, having been divorced in 1979. Taking down a photograph from his wall and pulling out family snapshots from his wallet, Bonney explains that David, a Methodist minister in Northern Virginia, is married, and John, a law student at Regent University, lives at home. Bonney also beams when he mentions his grandchildren, Mary Lauren and Thomas.
Bonney happily chatters about his karate classes, which he recently started, recommending them as an ``excellent mental concentration'' exercise.
Unexpectedly, he uncovers his tattoos, acquired two years ago. An eagle and the word ``Love'' spanning a heart grace his upper right arm. He counts himself in good company. Luminaries like Winston Churchill and Churchill's mother sported tattoos, he says, which symbolize independence, a strong self-identity, a signature of one's soul, a separation from the constraints of conventional society.
Because he became eligible for retirement in August 1994, Bonney decided to step down from the bench to pursue other interests before he became a fossil.
``I decided a long time ago I wouldn't remain here too long,'' he said. ``I wanted to make a clean break. I want to try something new.''
Bonney, the son of the Monticello Hotel's food buyer, has not decided what to pursue after his retirement from the bench. He contemplates returning to private practice or teaching full time at a university. He also expresses interest in doing something related to the film industry or staying involved in community and religious activities.
``I'm not afraid of making a change of career, because I've done it previously,'' he said. ``I taught for 16 years before I went to law school, so I don't hesitate to do something else.
``I do want to try something new, and I'm bold enough and brave enough to do so. So many get too comfortable and do not have confidence in themselves. I always require a lot of challenge.'' SETTING HIGH STANDARDS
A Norfolk native, who made a midlife decision at 37 to switch careers, Bonney entered the legal profession after 16 years teaching at Norview High School and MacArthur Academy in Norfolk. He attended law school at the College of William and Mary, then worked as a clerk for U.S. District Judge Richard B. Kellam for a year. After one year of private practice at Chesapeake-based Outland Gray O'Keefe & Hubbard, he was appointed to a position on the bankruptcy bench in 1971.
During his tenure as a bankruptcy judge, Bonney has established an atmosphere in the courtroom that preserves the sanctity of the court. Lawyers uphold that decorum by speaking plainly but properly, avoiding colloquialisms. They must stand at the podium when addressing the court.
``I have respect for attorneys' time,'' Bonney said. ``I've tried to set high standards which the lawyers rise to.''
A model of efficiency, he works through and disposes cases rapidly, leaving no doubt who is in charge of the proceedings, attorneys attest.
``He's very businesslike in the courtroom,'' said Frank Santoro, a Portsmouth lawyer and one of the judge's former clerks. ``There's a tenor and a tone set. He expects the court to be treated with respect. He expects lawyers to treat each other with respect. Everything all stems from the top down.''
Bonney served as president of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, a group of about 275 judges, during a crisis in the judiciary's history. The U.S. Supreme Court's Marathon Pipeline decision in 1983 severely restricted the authority of bankruptcy judges and left doubt as to their jurisdiction.
As the leader of the NCBJ from 1983-84, Bonney spearheaded a lobbying charge on Capitol Hill resulting in a 1984 federal law redefining the power of bankruptcy judges.
``Hal's a tireless, very hard worker who was very dedicated to the job of preserving and protecting the job of this court,'' said Judge David Houston, a bankruptcy judge in the northern district of Mississippi who lobbied with Bonney on the Hill during the early '80s.
Though hailed at the time, Bonney's legislative victory, coupled with other changes in the federal bankruptcy code, translated into increasingly heavy workloads for him and his judicial colleagues. Bonney's caseload skyrocketed from 1,200 to 11,000 a year with the swelling of bankruptcies filed in the '80s.
``In the late '80s, he single-handedly managed the second-heaviest docket in the United States,'' said Judge David Adams, who also presides over bankruptcies in Norfolk. ``His benchmark is `Justice delayed is justice denied.' ''
Lawyers who have appeared before Bonney credit his organizational and administrative abilities for making him into one of the nation's most efficient judges. The federal docket has been called ``the rocket docket'' - due partly to Bonney - because cases are heard in a timely fashion instead of with the grinding wheels of justice that accompany many other courts. CASES ALONG THE WAY
Over his 25 years on the bench, Bonney has ruled on scores of cases, many of them precedent-setting and high-profile: cases like Landbank Equity, the largest second-mortgage business on the East Coast, and Carlton Industries, the largest warehouse chain based in Virginia.
When asked to name his favorite or most interesting ruling, Bonney gracefully declines. Some of his most memorable cases, he says, were not the screaming corporate headlines but the small businesses where families worked hard to reorganize, he said. He expressed admiration for a furniture company whose owners did their utmost to reorganize the family business.
``Those are the benchmarks along the way,'' he said. ``Those are the cases where people make the sacrifices.''
Stories abound of how Bonney visits some firms trying to reorganize their business under Chapter 11 so he can determine the viability of those operations. He often wanders through offices and warehouses, talks to employees and inspects inventory.
``People sometimes forget the moral or emotional aspect of these cases,'' said Aubrey Lane, president of Hofheimer's, a Norfolk-based shoe company that underwent bankruptcy reorganization. ``What he's dealing with is gut-wrenching for the people involved. No one can go through this unscathed. He never lost sight of the human side.'' A CARING PERSONALITY
Bonney's background in education pervades his legal persona and extends beyond the courtroom. Even after entering law school and assuming his judicial position, he continued teaching American history at the University of Virginia, graduate classes at the College of William and Mary and bankruptcy at Regent University's law school.
In addition to the basics of case studies, briefings and litigation that he covers in his law school classes, he encourages students to learn more outside the classroom by bringing them schedules of his court cases and inviting visits to his chambers. He helped the law school form a chapter in civility, ethics and expertise.
He offers his time and energy in recruiting nationally prominent speakers to local bar conferences. He has delivered to Virginia such legal barons as Harvey Miller, a bankruptcy lawyer who handled R.H. Macy's and Continental Airlines, and David Epstein, an Atlanta lawyer and former law school dean.
``He was obviously a person who was very concerned about people,'' Regent University Law School Dean J. Nelson Happy said. ``He's very humanitarian in his approach. That kind of warm, caring personality is important in teaching.''
To the local bar and his clerks, Bonney's teaching manner takes on different cadences.
A disciplinarian, he doesn't hesitate to reprimand lawyers who waste the court's time in unprepared, lengthy harangues.
Sometimes short-tempered, he orders litigants to answer questions. Short, concise explanations devoid of grandstanding and theatrics win his nods of approval.
Quirky in some ways, the judge mandates a certain protocol to everything in his courtroom. His clerks learn early that a certain number of pens, in particular colors, and paper must be ready on his bench in the courtroom.
And ``his'' chair in the courtroom must be pulled out and tilted so he can sit down immediately upon his entrance without touching it.
A voracious reader who prefers mysteries, religious books and film-related readings, Bonney's intellectual prowess emerges in his judicial opinions, which are sprinkled with literary and historical references.
Instead of using the dry legalese of most law documents, Bonney writes for the average person. In a recent opinion on credit unions, he quotes Omar Khayyam's ``The Rubaiyat,'' Thomas Paine and Shakespeare's Richard II.
In the past he's referred to Sherlock Holmes, Edgar Allan Poe's ``The Raven'' and early Scottish ballads. His opening passage from a ruling on debtors' abuse of the bankruptcy system, In Re Braley, reads:
Holy smoke!
Have they nothing else to do?
The United States Trustee would sink a sailor because he is eating too much on the U.S.S. Iowa, is smoking too many cigarettes, his wife and daughter, too, his wife is committed to Alcoholics Anonymous, his teenage children require braces and, shame of shames, they are just living a mite too high on the hog to qualify for relief in straight, Chapter 7 bankruptcy. If the 'crats must eat sow belly, everyone else must east sow belly.
``I think opinions are something everyone can read,'' Bonney said. ``I write them as I talk or speak.'' THE GOSPEL IN ACTION
The beliefs of Bonney, a devoutly religious man, carry over to the many other facets of his life. A Sunday school teacher at Epworth United Methodist Church in Norfolk, he leads the Wesleymen's Bible study class, which has aired on WTAR Radio every Sunday since 1932.
For 50 weeks each year for 33 years, Bonney has presided over the light-blue carpeted meeting hall at the corner of Freemason and Boush streets in Norfolk to deliver a brief lesson to his adult listeners. His portrait, painted in his 20th year of teaching, hangs in the back of the ``classroom'' along with those of the only two other men to lead the Wesleymen's Sunday school class, Albert L. Roper, a former Norfolk mayor, and W. Farley Powers.
Wesleymen's long Sunday school tradition resembles a service more than a class because of the extensive singing. Bonney likes to point out that the grand piano at the front of the room was used by the famous opera singer Enrico Caruso on one of his last tours.
When class begins, Bonney assumes his position at the front of the room, alternately sitting contemplatively, almost as if he is sleeping, and singing. His lesson begins simply with a story about his sister in Richmond returning from a trip to England.
He gracefully segues into the core of his message: Faith and understanding are the two essential elements for healing.
``Judge Bonney always has an important message to the people that applies to their lives,'' said the Rev. Dr. W. Emmett M. Diggs, pastor of the church. ``He does not consider himself a minister.
``Laypeople don't. But every layperson is a minister, and Bonney is one of the greatest lay ministers in the church that I've ever met. The best descriptive term for him - he's a servant.''
Diggs tells of how Bonney invites alcoholics from the street to church. He's been said to have broken their whiskey bottles or poured the alcohol down the sink, all the while encouraging them to do better.
``He's a federal judge, but yet he has time for the underdog, for the person beaten by life,'' Diggs said.
``Essentially that's the gospel in action.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
TAMARA VONINSKI/Staff
Hal J. Bonney Jr. with a portrait of him painted in his 20th year of
teaching at Epworth United Methodist Church in Norfolk.
Bonney leads the Wesleymen's Bible study class at Epworth United
Methodist Church. The class has been broadcast on WTAR Radio every
Sunday since 1932.
Graphics
HAL JAMES BONNEY JR.
Born: Norfolk
Grew up in Norfolk, Richmond
Age: 65
Family: two sons, David and John; daughter-in-law, Wendi; two
grandchildren, Mary Lauren and Thomas
Education: B.A. and M.A. degrees (history and political science)
at the University of Richmond
J.D. degree, Marshall-Wythe School of Law, College of William and
Mary
Experience: Judge, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Eastern District of
Virginia, 1971-1995
Teacher, 1962-present, The Wesleymen, Epworth United Methodist
Church, Norfolk
Member, Board of Visitors, Duke Divinity School, Duke University
Member, Board of Directors, Union Mission
Past president, National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges
Past president, William and Mary Law School Association
OPINION EXCERPTS
From a memorandum opinion and order in Navy Federal Credit Union
v. Simmons and Simmons:
We begin this opinion with dictum. Often it makes the better
point.
They think themselves anointed.
Ah, take the cash, and let the credit go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant drum!
- The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Over all of these years we have heard the argument of credit
unions seeking a favored status in the bankruptcy court which the
law simply does not give. ``It is our members' money this bankrupt
has used.''
It is with a pious fraud
as with a bad action: it
begets a calamitous necessity
of going on.
- Thomas Paine
From In Re Lake Ridge Associates, Opinion of the Court on Motion
to Dismiss:
Historically, the court would observe what as a slice of the
national real estate economy this case is, a clear example, a
classic. We may have the most valuable single tract of land
remaining in Virginia Beach. I have viewed it myself. It is large,
well-situated and with vast potential. Someday it will prosper for
someone. But into these potentially successful developments fell the
recession and overnight dreams and plans turned to gloom. It is a
victim of ``asset planning.'' We deal with a situation as we find
it. The task of Bankruptcy Courts in the past few years has been to
take innumerable projects and deal with them under bankruptcy law
which few understand. It is obviously not an easy task and
frequently unpleasant for all parties involved. In a sense it is to
make the best, under the law, of very bad situations.
Photo
FILE
For 33 years, Hal J. Bonney Jr. has presided over Sunday school at
Epworth United Methodist Church in Norfolk, delivering a brief
lesson to his adult listeners.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY JUDGES BANKRUPTCY
COURT by CNB