Oliver Grant Bruton

O. Grant Bruton, age 91 died on July 7, 2022, survived by his wife of 39 years, Sylvia Cardwell Bruton, his sons, G. Macaulay Bruton, of Venice, CA and Ian C. Bruton, of Jeffersonville IN, his grandsons, Ian Grant Bruton, of Jeffersonville IN, David Bruton and A. Macaulay Bruton of Indianapolis IN, his sister, Georgia B. Miles of Sacramento and his stepdaughters, Catherine Jackson Tedrow and Zoe Jackson, of Louisville, KY. His first son, Billy Bruton died in 1960, when he was three years old.
Grant, (or O.G. as he was affectionately known to members of his family) was born in Mexico City, Mexico on March 6, 1931, and moved with his family to Louisville in 1944. Because his parents, Edmund Macaulay Bruton and Byrd Grant Bruton, were United States citizens, Grant was born a U.S. citizen. But he was also a Mexican citizen until his eighteenth birthday, when he formally chose U.S. citizenship. Grant retained a fondness for the land of his birth and its culture, but he was also proud of his "ex-pat" status. He was convinced that, because he was foreign-born, he could better appreciate the advantages of living in the U.S.A.
Grant attended Highland Junior High School, 1944-45 and Louisville Male High School, 1945-46. After attending Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, NJ, 1946–48, Grant was the first person in Kentucky to receive a scholarship from the English Speaking Union to attend Christ's Hospital [School], Horsham, Sussex, U.K.; 1948-49 which Grant often said was one of the most important years of his life. That institution is known as the Bluecoat School was founded in 1552 by Edward VI, son of Henry VIII, and Grant formed lasting friendships with several Christ's Hospital classmates which lasted until his death. He used Shakespeare's words to describe his relationships with them; he " grappled them to [his] soul with hoops of steel." After Christ's Hospital Grant attended Princeton University, 1949-53, where he graduated with highest honors and then attended Harvard Law School, 1955-58, [L.L.B.]. Grant was drafted in the Army and maintained that his in his 20 months in the Army, stationed in Newfoundland, he learned a lesson in more important than any taught to him by his many learned professors, namely that everyone in this world knows more about something than you do; therefore you can learn from anyone. According to his colleagues, Grant had a brilliant legal mind and was hired by the Louisville law firm of Middleton, Seelbach, Wolford, Willis & Cochran (later, Middleton Reutlinger.) It was the first and only law firm to employ him. He was made a partner in 1962 and became "Of Counsel" in 2009. In joking response to observations that his loyalty to the same firm was remarkable, Grant would say that his long tenure showed he lacked ambition and initiative. Until his death, he occupied an office provided by the firm. At first, Grant's legal practice mostly consisted of the defense of personal injury claims made against individuals and businesses. Later, he provided services to a variety of corporate clients, including railroads, public utilities, tobacco companies and warehouse companies. He would say that: "When I was the new kid on the block, they gave me the losing cases; rear end collisions. So I started out as a legal proctologist. Now, to extend the analogy, I'm a legal dermatologist; my clients are corporations; they're always irritated but they don't die." Louisville Gas & Electric Company became his most important client. In addition to defending it against personal injury claims, he worked with its right-of-way and gas departments to acquire electric and pipeline easements as well as underground gas storage fields. He filed many "condemnation" [i.e. eminent domain] cases. Several of them wound up in the appellate courts. He lost the first two cases, but won all the others. He was best known to the public for his representation of LG&E before the Kentucky Public Service Commission in cases seeking increases in electric and gas rates, applications for the construction of generating plants and the establishment of procedures for dealing with natural gas shortages. And, with respect to litigation, he continued to try cases in the lower courts, but he spent an increasing amount of time before courts of appeal, where the central issue is whether or not the trial court judge made an important error. In courts of appeal, there are no juries; the emphasis is on brief writing and oral arguments before panels of judges. An increasing number of clients who has lost cases in other parts of the state employed Grant to try to win a reversal on appeal. He would remark that this an enjoyable way to practice law; "If you win the appeal, you're a hero; if you can't, the client, who has already lost below, won't hold it against you."
Grant's most famous appellate victory came when he led a team that, after an arduous and well-publicized battle, persuaded the Supreme Court of Kentucky to strike down the law which permitted the dairy industry to fix minimum prices for milk and milk products. The Louisville Courier-Journal published an article about Grant entitled: "Good Guy in a Grey Hat." It noted that while he wore a "black hat" when he advocated increased utility rates, he wore a "white hat" when he won the case that resulted in lowered milk prices. Thereafter, Grant, whose eccentricities included the wearing of "bowlers," i.e. black "derby" hats, bought a custom-fitted grey bowler from a London hat maker. Some of Grant's cases went on for a long time. He and Bob Miller, a Meade County lawyer, were engaged in a will contest case that involved two battles in the probate court, several in circuit court, three in the Court of Appeals and two in the Supreme Court before it concluded in a complete victory – ten years after it began.
Grant's last case was the longest-lasting and perhaps the most satisfying to him. He was able to use his expertise in eminent domain law and appellate law to prevent the condemnation of his client's business property by a communications company - and then to persuade the Supreme Court that the purported contemnor should pay damages for "abuse of process." A legal journal published by eminent domain lawyers made note of the case and commented: "the hunted became the hunter." Over the years, Grant was involved with various civic and non-profit organizations, including the Central State Hospital board, president of the Jefferson County Council for Retarded Children (now the Council for Developmental Disabilities), vice-president of the Kentucky Association for Retarded Children, the Governor's Council on Special Education, president of The Falls Region Health Council, board member of the Bingham Child Guidance Council, board member of the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, board member and Scholarship Committee chair in the English-Speaking Union and board member of the Savage Rose Theatre Company. As Grant grew older, when he was asked to describe his favorite hobby, he would answer: "Shakespeare." In pursuit of this hobby, he audited graduate classes at the University of Louisville, attended the historic 2001 Blackfriars' Shakespeare Conference in Staunton, Virginia, returned to Staunton to attend subsequent performances, conferences and lectures, wrote papers (for his own amusement and not for publication) and became a member of the Shakespeare Oxford Society. Grant and Sylvia established a pattern of traveling to Cambridge (in the U.K.) every other year to attend Summer School classes in Shakespeare. They befriended several of their professors there and arranged an English-Speaking Union lecture tour for one of them.
A memorial service for Grant will be announced at a future date.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made in Grant's name to the Kentucky chapter of the English Speaking Union
Arrangements under the direction of Pearson's, "Where Louisville Goes To Remember".