LOS ANGELES : Judge Accused of Conflict in Sexual Harassment Case

A Superior Court judge who issued a controversial gag order in a sexual harassment case against a finance company should have disqualified himself because the firm holds the mortgage on his home, a local chapter of the National Organization for Women has charged.

Judge John H. Major should have disclosed the $195,000 loan that Countrywide Credit Industries made on his Westlake Village home and given the plaintiffs a chance to seek a substitute judge, said Jan Tucker, a spokeswoman for NOW’s San Fernando Valley-Northeast Los Angeles chapter.

Major acknowledged that he has a home loan with Countrywide but said there was nothing improper about him ruling in the case, which accuses a former Countrywide manager of making obscene remarks and gestures to two women employees at the company’s Tarzana branch.

Several experts on legal ethics agreed, saying home loans are such routine and impersonal business transactions that they are not the sort of financial interest that might be construed as a clear-cut conflict.

Moreover, they said, unless the judge was in default and in danger of losing his home, it would be hard to show that he stood to gain anything by ruling in Countrywide’s favor.