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WOMAN SEEKS BLIND JUSTICE FROM
COURTS
By Susan Snyder, Las Vegas
Sun, 08-10-01
Anya Duke just might be the most stubborn woman on the
planet.
On Aug. 9 last year a Clark County District 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 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 hardships
eclipses that of her family's escape from the Gestapo during World War
II.
As a young adult she taught languages to U.S. soldiers 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."
WORKING TOGETHER TO ATTAIN
FAIRNESS | 
