COURT WATCH : Girl Talk

Orange County’s ever-alert 4th District Court of Appeal took a necessary stand by sending back for retrial a divorce case in which it determined that a trial judge showed “gender bias” against the wife. The rebuke of the trial judge sends a clear message that sexism should not be tolerated in the courtroom.

The case involved divorce proceedings between Cheryl Iverson and George Iverson, a wealthy Newport Beach car dealer.

When the couple separated in 1987 after 15 years of marriage, Cheryl Iverson disputed the validity of a questionable prenuptial agreement that might have cost her $5 million to $10 million in a divorce settlement.

In ruling the prenuptial agreement was valid, Superior Court Judge Ragnar R. Engebretsen continually referred to Cheryl Iverson, who was in her 40s, as a “girl.” He also made it clear he did not believe her contention that George Iverson had initiated the marriage. “Why, in heaven’s name, do you buy the cow when you get the milk free, as we used to say,” Engebretsen said. George Iverson, he said, had been “getting the milk free.”

In sending the case back for retrial, 4th District Presiding Judge David G. Sills wrote in the lead opinion that “the day is long past when appellate courts can disregard judicial action rooted in racial or sexual bias as harmless error.”

Not every case will be so clear-cut as this one. But perhaps it will give pause to even well-intentioned judges to watch their language--and search their minds for evidence of bias. The appeal court made a very just ruling.