Litigation

Calls Grow for Blankenship Resignation

By Peter Hardin

A group of large pension funds has joined critics calling on Don Blankenship, chairman and CEO of Massey Energy, to resign following a disaster at a mine operated by the company.

They include the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, according to a Wall Street Journal article.

Blankenship told the newspaper he didn’t plan to quit.  “I’ve done what I could to run the company properly in every regard,” he said. In a longer Wall Street Journal story based on an interview with Blankenship, he was quoted defending the company’s safety practices as tops in the business.

Blankenship is known to Gavel Grab readers for spending  $3 million in 2004 to help elect a state Supreme Court justice. His coal company went on to benefit from two critical votes by the justice to overturn a massive jury award against it. The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled in Caperton v. Massey that large campaign expenditures could create an unacceptable potential for bias.

To learn more about Blankenship in the news after the mine disaster, click here for Gavel Grab posts; for more about Caperton, click here for other Gavel Grab articles.

Full post as published by The Gavel on April 23, 2010 (boomark / email).