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Delta Judge on Medical Leave; Case Reassigned

Posted on: Tuesday, 10 January 2006, 15:00 CST

By Harry R. Weber Associated Press

ATLANTA -- The judge overseeing Delta Air Lines Inc.'s bankruptcy case, who had ruffled feathers among the company's pilots with comments about their high pay, is taking a two-month medical leave of absence, a court official said Monday.

Judge Prudence Carter Beatty, 63, is taking leave, and the Delta case has been reassigned to Judge Adlai Hardin, according to Dexter Gillies, assistant to the clerk of court in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

"It is for medical reasons," Gillies said Monday, but he would not detail the nature of the judge's medical problem.

Reached at her Manhattan home, Beatty declined to comment. Her courtroom deputy, Carlos Pabon, also would not say what was ailing the judge.

Delta spokeswoman Chris Kelly said the airline doesn't expect its bankruptcy case to be delayed because of Beatty's leave. She would not comment on how long it might take a new judge to get up to speed on the case.

"We anticipate a seamless transition and look forward to continuing with our court-supervised restructuring," Kelly said.

Meanwhile, Atlanta-based Delta, the nation's No. 3 airline and operator of a hub at Salt Lake City International Airport, already had received a six-month extension until July 11 to exclusively file its reorganization plan, which had been due Thursday.

At the time of her appointment in 1982, Beatty became the fourth woman bankruptcy judge in the United States.

Prior to her appointment, she was a partner at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, which is among Delta's lawyers in the bankruptcy case.

William Rochelle, a New York bankruptcy lawyer familiar with the case, said Hardin is a smart judge who should be able to pick up the case without much of a delay.

"There will probably be some minor disruption, but I don't think it will affect the case to any substantial degree at all," Rochelle said.

He said he doesn't believe Beatty's absence benefits one side or the other.

"There are lawyers all over this case, and it's not like anything is going to slip by," Rochelle said. "I think you could move the whole case to New Mexico and it wouldn't matter."

Beatty had gained attention in the Delta case through comments she had made during various court hearings.

In November, a lawyer representing Delta's pilots union asked Beatty to remove herself from deciding on Delta's request to reject the union contract so the airline could impose $325 million in concessions on pilots. The effort to remove the judge came after the judge had referred in an earlier hearing to Delta pilot wages being "hideously high" and adding, "What's really weird is that anyone agreed to pay them that much money to begin with."

Beatty refused to recuse herself, and Delta and its 6,000 pilots later reached an interim deal on pay cuts worth less than half what the company was seeking on an annual basis. The two sides are hoping to hammer out a comprehensive permanent deal by March. Delta pilots had been earning on average $169,393 annually before the most recent 14 percent wage cut, plus a reduction in other cost items equal to another 1 percent wage cut.

Contributing: Aleksandrs Rozens

Source: Deseret News (Salt Lake City)

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