Columnist Susan Snyder: Woman seeks blind justice from courts

Friday, Aug. 10, 2001 | 4:23 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column also appears Tuesdays and Fridays in the Las Vegas Sun. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

Anya Duke just might be the most stubborn woman on the planet.

On Aug. 9 last year a Clark County District Court judge dismissed Duke's complaint against a local doctor, who Duke claims incorrectly diagnosed and treated a 1991 injury to her eye. She says ensuing treatments left her blind in both eyes.

It was a brief and bitter day in court that Duke, 63, had awaited for nine years. Defense attorneys' past motions to dismiss certain facts prohibited Duke from telling jurors she was blind, disabled or ill. She even had to cover the special television-like machine she uses to read documents.

She represented herself in court that day, as the years-long battle had drained her finances and exhausted the services of five lawyers. Defense objections to her opening statements were upheld, and the case was dismissed in less than an hour.

Most people would have left the courthouse and let it be.

But Duke isn't like most people.

And on July 18 the Supreme Court of the State of Nevada accepted an appeal brief Duke wrote herself.

She is not giving up this fight easily -- or maybe at all.

"I had a very hard time learning how to do this," Duke said of writing a lengthy and complicated legal brief. "But I've learned a lot from listening to lawyers and from (reading) all the pleadings."

The 34-page document cites statutes, excerpts from previous hearings and uses the kind of legal language gumbo that makes lawyers indispensable and wealthy.

Duke says she suffers from a host of ailments stemming from the aftermath of the experimental treatment in which a gas bubble was injected into her injured right eye. They include chronic fatigue and sinus problems.

A report by Karin D. Huffer, a licensed state therapist, says Duke suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression which "seems tied to her litigation challenges from which she cannot escape being victimized."

Duke, who was born in the Ukraine, says this emotional hardship eclipses that of her family's escape from the Gestapo during World War II.

As a young adult she taught languages to U.S. soliders in Germany. Duke speaks seven in all, including German and Hebrew. Her English is the weakest.

"I wish that English was my native language. It's the one I have to do all this in," Duke said. "But I adapt very quickly. I was a teacher, so I know what the fundamental part of learning is."

She got back to fundamentals earlier this year by enrolling in a training program at the state Bureau of Services to the Blind and Visually Impaired. Rob Johnston, the bureau's deputy chief, says she is doing very well.

"Several months ago she called and said, 'I want to go back to work.' She's a very hard worker," Johnston said. "I think she's made a lot of progress."

Defense attorneys have filed a reply asking justices to toss out Duke's brief and postpone the hearing schedule. Duke says all she can do for now is wait.

If she can't tell her story in a courtroom, she is prepared to write a book.

"We've got a gutsy lady here," Johnston said.

Guts. Stubbornness. Duke says call it whatever you want.

"I have no other choice," she says. "I have to do this."