Anthony Nugent, 83; Missouri Judge Lost Fight on Retirement

Anthony Nugent Jr., 83, who unsuccessfully fought his mandatory retirement from the Missouri Court of Appeals all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, died Tuesday in Kansas City. The cause of death was not reported.

Nugent and Ellis Gregory Jr., an associate circuit judge, challenged the rule that required them to retire at age 70 in a suit filed against John Ashcroft, then the governor of Missouri.

Nugent was forced to leave the post when the Supreme Court ruled in 1991 that judges on state courts were not protected by the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

A Missouri native, Nugent served as an Army medic during World War II. After the war, he graduated from Harvard Law School before returning to Missouri, where he ran unsuccessfully for the Missouri Senate and the City Council in Kansas City.

In 1954, he won election as president of the Urban League of Kansas City.

In the mid-1960s, he left private law practice and worked briefly for the U.S. Justice Department in Washington before returning to Kansas City to become an assistant U.S. attorney.

He was appointed to the Missouri Court of Appeals in December 1980.