SALT LAKE CITY — Federal Judge Bruce Jenkins, who had sat on the bench in Utah since 1978, died Tuesday. He was 96.
Jenkins is best known for presiding over the case of the "downwinders," who contended that nuclear bomb testing sickened and killed them or their families.
An appeals court overturned Jenkins’ ruling in the plaintiffs’ favor, but the case spurred Congress to compensate the downwinders.
Jenkins took a lighter caseload as he got older, but earlier this year, he awarded $10.5 million to the family of a woman beheaded by a traffic control gate in Arches National Park.
In an interview earlier this year with FOX 13 News, Jenkins recalled his days in state politics. He served as president of the Utah Senate in the mid-1960s — the last Democrat to hold that post.
"More than 208 individual agencies reported directly to the governor. It was impossible," he said, "and so I wrote and sponsored what became known as the 'Little Hoover Commission'... So I think the effort on the part of people to do some good where they can is admirable."
That commission reorganized state government into more manageable departments.
Jenkins' survivors include his wife, Peggy. They married in 1952 and had four children.
