In the ruling filed Tuesday, the court said any right O'Keeffe had to most of the 101 works of art ended with her death.

The financially struggling university had asked a lower court for permission to sell two of the works — O'Keeffe's 1927 oil painting "Radiator Building — Night, New York," and Marsden Hartley's "Painting No. 3."

The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum objected to the plan, arguing that Fisk was violating the terms of the bequest, which required the works be displayed together, and asking for the artwork to be turned over to the estate.

The Davidson County Chancery Court blocked the sale as well as a proposed $30 million arrangement to share the collection with the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Ark. Nashville Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle ordered last year that the university had to take the collection out of storage and put it back on display or forfeit it to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum.

But the state appeals court overturned that decision, ruling the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum has no right to the work and no standing in court.

Representatives of the museum could not immediately be reached for comment. They will have 60 days to appeal the decision.

Ninety-seven of the works were part of a collection that belonged to O'Keeffe's late husband, the photographer and art promoter Alfred Stieglitz. O'Keeffe donated those works to the university in 1949 while executing Stieglitz's will.

The high court's unanimous decision reversed lower court rulings that sided with the city of Woodinville's refusal to consider the Northshore United Church of Christ's land-use permit application for Tent City 4 in a largely residential area in 2006.

Woodinville officials violated a constitutional provision that guarantees "absolute freedom of conscience in all matters of religious sentiment, belief and worship," Justice James M. Johnson wrote.

Six other justices signed Johnson's ruling, which reversed findings by King County Superior Court Judge Charles W. Mertel and a state Court of Appeals panel. The majority faulted the church on some procedural grounds but nonetheless found the city mainly in the wrong.

The other two justices would have gone farther. Justice Richard B. Sanders wrote, and Justice Tom Chambers agreed, that the majority held an "errant and dangerous assumption that the government may constitutionally be in the business of prior licensing or permitting religious exercise any more than it can license journalists."

Neither group of justices ruled on whether federal religious freedoms were violated in the case, which was closely watched by civil rights advocates and churches.

WKP partner Gary M. Paul will be installed as vice-president of the American Association for Justice during the AAJ’s annual convention in San Francisco. Mr. Paul currently serves as an officer of the AAJ as secretary. He will begin a one-year term as vice-president on July 29.


Mr. Paul is among the Southern California bar’s most distinguished and well-recognized plaintiff attorneys. He was named “Trial Lawyer of the Year”  by the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles (CAALA)  in both 1981 and 2008; received the Edward I. Pollock Award in 1996 for “dedication, efforts, and effectiveness” in consumer matters; and has been named four times to the Southern California Super Lawyers® list. He has served as president of both CAALA, CAOC, and Pound Civil Justice Institute, and is an elected fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers.  He is also a respected lecturer and author.

Since joining Waters & Kraus in 2006, Mr. Paul has been instrumental in several of the firm’s most noteworthy asbestos-mesothelioma cases. This includes Cundiff v. Alfa Laval, a recent  post-Taylor verdict that resulted in an award of $12.0 million to a retired U.S. Navy machinist. After the official swearing in of the 2009-2010 officers on the floor of the AAJ convention, Mr. Paul and the newly elected president, Anthony Tarricone, will be feted at a by-invitation-only event for members of AAJ’s Leaders Forum and Endowment. This exclusive dinner reception will be held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), which is currently featuring a special exhibit of works by Georgia O’Keefe and Ansel Adams.


About the American Association for Justice (AAJ)

The American Association for Justice promotes a fair and effective justice system and supports the work of attorneys to ensure that any person who is injured by the misconduct or negligence of others can obtain justice in America’s courtrooms, even when taking on the most powerful interests. Formerly known as the American Trial Lawyers Association (ATLA), AAJ was founded in 1946, and today represents the world’s largest trial bar as a broad-based, international coalition of attorneys, law professors, paralegals, and law students.

About Waters Kraus & Paul

Waters Kraus & Paul is the West Coast practice of Waters & Kraus, LLP — a nationally recognized plaintiffs’ firm concentrating on complex product liability and personal injury/wrongful death cases, particularly asbestos-mesothelioma. In addition to toxic tort litigation, the firm’s diverse practice includes pharmaceutical product liability, negligence, elder financial abuse, and consumer product liability, as well as qui tam (whistleblower) and commercial litigation. With offices in California, Texas, and Maryland, Waters & Kraus has litigated cases in jurisdictions across the United States on behalf of individuals from all 50 states, as well as foreign governments. 

The Rev. Edward Pinkney was convicted in 2007 of paying people $5 to vote in a recall election in the southwestern Michigan city of Benton Harbor and was sentenced to probation.

Months later, Pinkney wrote a commentary in a Chicago-based populist newspaper that said Judge Alfred Butzbaugh could be punished by God with curses, fever and "extreme burning" unless he repented, a reference to an Old Testament passage. The black minister also described Butzbaugh, a white judge who presided over his case, as dumb, racist and corrupt.

In June 2008, another Berrien County judge sent Pinkney to prison for three to 10 years for violating probation with his words. Pinkney appealed saying his free-speech rights were trampled.

Once out of the parking lot, Peterson was arrested for drunken driving. He was subsequently found guilty and ordered to spend 60 days in jail.

A Wisconsin appeals court on Wednesday commended Peterson for doing the right thing by trying to sleep it off, and said the trial court was wrong not to let him argue that police had entrapped him.

The state had argued successfully at trial that people who choose to drink too much can't argue they've been entrapped when stopped for drunken driving. The 2nd District Court of Appeals disagreed.

"Drinking alcohol to excess, while inadvisable and unhealthy, is not unlawful by itself," the appeals court said.

It did not address the fact that Peterson was underage. Peterson's attorney, Andrew Mishlove, said that was irrelevant given the other issues at stake.

"I was asked no question by anyone including the president about my views on any specific legal issue," she said at the outset of a second day of questioning by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

She made her remark after Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, asked about a published report that administration officials have been seeking to reassure abortion rights groups concerned about her position on the issue.

Sotomayor, 55, is in line to become the first Hispanic to sit on the Supreme Court. Even Republicans concede she is on the way toward confirmation, barring a major gaffe.

Sotomayor sidestepped when Cornyn asked whether she stood by or disavowed a controversial 2001 remark that a "wise Latina" judge would often make better decisions than a white male.

She said she stood by her statement on Tuesday that the comment was a rhetorical flourish gone awry.