Former Vermont Supreme Court Justice Louis Peck, who survived a debilitating war injury to become one of state government’s most respected lawyers and jurists, has died. He was 89.
A paratrooper in World War II, Peck was wounded jumping into Germany, where an aircraft crashed on top of him, putting him in the hospital for two years and leaving him with a limp for the rest of his life.
A longtime attorney with the state attorney general’s office, he spent 10 years on the Supreme Court bench, beginning in 1981. But it was as a plaintiff that he achieved the most notoriety: He refused to step down at the age of 70, arguing that the state Constitution mandating retirement at that age violated federal age discrimination statutes.
Peck died Thursday at Woodridge Nursing Home.