Luther B. Way
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Luther Bynum Way (September 26, 1879 – October 23, 1943) was a
United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district. Each district covers one U.S. state or a portion of a state. There is at least one feder ...
of the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (in case citations, E.D. Va.) is one of two United States district courts serving the Commonwealth of Virginia. It has jurisdiction over the Northern Virginia, Hampton Roa ...
.


Early and family life

Born in
Alamance County Alamance County (), from the North Carolina Collection's website at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved September 18, 2012. is a county in North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 171,415. Its county sea ...
,
North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...
, Way graduated from the
University of Virginia School of Law The University of Virginia School of Law (Virginia Law) is the law school of the University of Virginia, a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819 as part of his "academical village", and now ...
in 1907. He married Ione Hornaday, and they had three sons: Franklin (b. 1911), Luther Jr. (b. 1913) and O. Newton (b. 1915).


Legal career

Admitted to the Virginia bar, Way was in private practice in Norfolk from 1907 to 1922, and tried to revitalize the Republican party in the Tidewater region. As campaign manager for
Menalcus Lankford Menalcus ("Mack") Lankford (March 14, 1883 – December 27, 1937) was a Virginia lawyer, naval aviator and Republican politician who served two terms as U.S. Representative from Virginia's 2nd congressional district, whose largest city is Norfo ...
, he did twice secure his friend's election to Congress. He was a special assistant to the
United States Attorney United States attorneys are officials of the U.S. Department of Justice who serve as the chief federal law enforcement officers in each of the 94 U.S. federal judicial districts. Each U.S. attorney serves as the United States' chief federal ...
in the
United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a United States federal executive departments, federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of Law of the Unite ...
in 1922. He was in private practice in
Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...
,
Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...
from 1923 to 1931, and widely endorsed for the judicial post.


Federal judicial service

On February 21, 1931, President
Herbert Hoover Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was the 31st president of the United States, serving from 1929 to 1933. A wealthy mining engineer before his presidency, Hoover led the wartime Commission for Relief in Belgium and ...
nominated Way to a seat on the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (in case citations, E.D. Va.) is one of two United States district courts serving the Commonwealth of Virginia. It has jurisdiction over the Northern Virginia, Hampton Roa ...
when Judge
Duncan Lawrence Groner Duncan Lawrence Groner (September 6, 1873 – July 17, 1957) was an Associate Justice and later Chief Justice of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Education and career Born in Norfolk, Virginia, Groner attended the ...
was promoted to the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (in case citations, D.C. Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. It has the smallest geographical jurisdiction of any of the U.S. courts of appeals, ...
. The
United States Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...
confirmed Way on March 2, 1931, and he received his commission on March 4, 1931. He served in that capacity until his death on October 23, 1943, in Norfolk. Because of the Great Depression, bankruptcies and receiverships (including of the
Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...
) in 1932, dominated his docket. Until Prohibition ended in December 1933, he also heard many liquor cases, as the Internal Revenue Service campaigned against untaxed liquor. He also was scheduled to hear the Curtiss Wright Corporation's libel suit against famed aviator Billy Mitchell, which was dismissed after Mitchell's death in 1936. During the New Deal, Judge Way heard cases concerning constitutionality of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled unconstitutional. He also upheld the
Railway Labor Act The Railway Labor Act is a United States federal law that governs labor relations in the railroad and airline industries. The Act, enacted in 1926 and amended in 1934 and 1936, seeks to substitute bargaining, arbitration, and mediation for strik ...
in 1934, deciding against the Virginian Railway and in favor of AFL Railway Employees Union No. 40. In 1935, he was joined by Judge Robert N. Pollard, the first Democrat to become a judge in the district since the Civil War, and they would sit on several 3-judge panels in the next years. Two of the more controversial cases Judge Way decided involved disparate pay for black schoolteachers and administrators. In the first case, involving Margaret Alston, Way had granted the school board's motion to dismiss, holding that Alston had accepted the lower pay in her annual contract. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed him, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied the school board's petition for review. Thus, when a similar matter involving schoolteacher Dorothy Roles reached Judge Way, in January 1943, he issued an injunction forbidding further pay discrimination.


Death and legacy

Judge Way died of a heart attack on October 23, 1943, about two weeks after being hospitalized for a heart condition. He was survived by his two older sons, who both served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He was preceded in death by his youngest son (1935) and his wife (1940). He was buried at Norfolk's Forest Lawn cemetery.Virginia death certificate on ancestry.com


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Way, Luther B. 1879 births 1943 deaths Judges of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia United States district court judges appointed by Herbert Hoover Virginia lawyers