Prominent LV attorney Austin dies at 81

Friday, Feb. 13, 2004 | 9:31 a.m.

In the 1960s Las Vegas attorney Robert Austin was given a seemingly impossible case to win, representing the Alpine Village restaurant on Paradise Road in a personal injury case.

The restaurant's mascot, a lumbering St. Bernard, had been accused of mauling a female guest. While many defense attorneys would be hesitant to put their clients on the stand, Austin opted for a bold maneuver.

"He brought the dog into court and the jury saw a big, sweet, slobbering, docile animal," longtime friend and local attorney Bill Ebert said. "He won the case."

Robert Austin, who in four decades in Las Vegas worked on cases ranging from auto accidents to high-profile litigation, including the Baneberry radiation case, MGM and Hilton hotel fires and the PEPCON disaster, died Sunday at his Las Vegas home. He was 81.

Austin died of leukemia that was diagnosed in late December, Ebert said.

A memorial service for the Las Vegas resident of 60 years is being planned, his family said. Palm Mortuary, 1600 S. Jones Blvd., is handling the arrangements.

"Robert was a skillful trial lawyer and a dangerous adversary," said Ebert, a native Las Vegan who has been practicing locally since 1985. "If I am a good lawyer today, it was because he (Austin) had such a huge influence on me. I still use outlines and formats he gave me years ago."

Austin was with the firm of Morse & Graves in the early 1960s, had a solo practice in the late 1960s, founded Austin & Thorndal in the 1970s and, following a five-year hiatus during which he studied geological science at the University of Utah, started Lyles & Austin in the 1980s.

The firm of Austin and Thorndal today is Thorndal, Armstrong, Delk, Balkenbush & Eisinger, one of Nevada's top insurance law firms with 32 attorneys.

"I first met him in 1966 when Bob was defending the insurance company of a cement truck driver who rear-ended the client of an attorney I was clerking for," Thorndal said.

"Bob won the case by proving that our client hesitated at the light. He was so smooth. I knew this was a guy I had to consider for a law partnership."

Thorndal credited Austin's early work on the Baneberry case -- with appeals, it went on for 20 years -- for the firm's eventual hard-fought victory.

The case stemmed from a Dec. 19, 1970, underground nuclear blast at the Nevada Test Site in which radiation was vented about 12,000 feet into the atmosphere.

The Baneberry blast, named after a desert shrub with white berries, exposed 900 workers to radiation. The families of two security guards filed a lawsuit claiming the men died from the radiation exposure. The claims were denied.

With partner George Lyles, Austin represented insurers involved in the 1980 MGM -- now Bally's -- fire, 1981 Las Vegas Hilton fire and the 1988 PEPCON rocket fuel plant explosion near Henderson.

Stella Butterfield, a longtime local court reporter and friend, called Austin "a man of many talents who as a teenager worked as a mucker in a mine. He told me in any job you have in life you learn something from someone."

Born Aug. 16, 1922, in LaJunta, Colo., Austin was raised in McGill and moved to Las Vegas with his family for his senior year of high school. He played center on the 1939 Las Vegas High football team along with fellow future local attorney William Morse, who today is senior partner with Morse & Mowbray.

When World War II broke out, Austin joined the Navy and was sent to officer's training school. As an ensign aboard a destroyer, he suffered a facial wound during a kamikaze attack near Okinawa. He grew what would become his trademark VanDyke beard to cover the scars.

After the war Austin returned to Las Vegas to work as manager of the El Portal Theatre downtown before enrolling at the University of Texas. He served as a lieutenant commander in the Navy during the Korean War and later earned his law degree at the University of Texas Law School.

Austin returned to Las Vegas at the urging of high school pal Morse and practiced law until his retirement in the early 1990s.

Austin is survived by his wife, Marianne Cram Austin of Las Vegas; three sons, John Edgar Austin of Fort Worth, Texas, Thomas Robert Austin of Dallas, and Michael William Austin of Boston; one daughter, Mary Kay Austin of Seattle; a sister, Betty Pitts, of Las Vegas; and three grandchildren.