‘An inspiration’ throughout his journey to becoming a judge
Very much a patron of the “suck it up” philosophy of life, John Corbett refused to let the misfortune of a moment define the course of his future.
Instead, he used the adversity he faced becoming a person with quadriplegia at the age of 15 as fuel for his success as a lawyer, a public defender and — eventually — an administrative law judge at the state Public Utility Commission.
“He just got on with it. He never asked, ‘Why me?’” said his wife, Marianne Corbett. “He was positively an inspiration to anyone who met him. Here he was, pretty much robbed of his teenage years, but he was never bitter. And, no matter what his accomplishments were, he just remained very humble.”
“I have never met anybody with the courage, the fortitude or the modeling of John,” said his lifelong friend Dr. Paul Friday of Oakmont. “He stepped up and lived. He was not going to vegetate, feel sorry for himself or have the expectation that people owed him. He was a mensch.”
Judge Corbett, 73, of Ross died Friday of respiratory failure.
He grew up in East Liberty and attended Central Catholic High School, where he swam the backstroke on the swim team. Judge Corbett had just received his lifeguard certification before a diving accident at a Cape May, N.J., hotel just two weeks before his 16th birthday changed his life.
“He had to be flown home to St. Francis Hospital, and he was in rehab for 10 months,” his wife said.
With an irreversible injury to the C5-C6 spinal cord segment, Judge Corbett lost use of everything from the chest down, with limited use of his hands.
His friend and fellow swim team member had gone from being an athletic and active teenager to suddenly learning how to use a manual wheelchair, Dr. Friday said.
“Our lives changed like you can’t believe,” he said. “How he survived his teenage years, let alone into his 70s, is the miracle of two saints: his mother and his wife.”
Judge Corbett used a special communication device in the hospital to continue his high school education.
“The brothers at Central Catholic came up with a system where one of his friends would carry a device with him from class to class, and John would listen on another device through a phone line at the hospital,” his wife said.
Judge Corbett graduated in 1964 with his friends and earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Pittsburgh. He went on to receive a law degree from the Pitt School of Law.
“He wasn’t given anything. He earned it,” Dr. Friday said. “He was an exquisite professional. Not one time did he ever complain.”
During his undergraduate years at Pitt, Judge Corbett roomed with the late Jack Karns and Dennis Kissane, who had similar teenage accidents and disabilities.
The trio went on to law school, then opened the Downtown firm of Karns, Corbett and Kissane.
“We had many, many great experiences together,” said Mr. Kissane, a retired federal and county prosecutor from McCandless. “John is the example of a person who has been, by life experience, given great difficulties and who has overcome them and has been a great benefit to all of us in the community. He was a friend — a best friend — who I loved and will miss greatly.”
Through the 1970s and 1980s, Judge Corbett worked at the Allegheny County Public Defender’s office, including as chief of its appellate division, where he once argued a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 1989, he was appointed an administrative law judge with the PUC, a post he held for 23 years, until his retirement in 2012.
“He was very widely respected, and he was an excellent judge. He had a fantastic temperament; he was smart, calm and extremely astute,” said retired PUC Administrative Law Judge Larry Gesoff of Squirrel Hill, who worked for many years alongside Judge Corbett. “He was well versed in the law, wrote clearly, and he was the consummate gentleman. I always looked up to him — I thought he was the best judge.”
He and Judge Corbett often oversaw public input hearings and ruled on complicated and contentious cases together, Judge Gesoff recalled, including those involving proposed rate increases, eminent domain and other issues.
“He and I once presided over a Bell Telephone case,” he said. “We had to file hundreds of pages of decisions. It was a very complicated case.”
Judge Gesoff’s wife, Jamie Benjamin, fondly remembered the legendary holiday parties that Judge Corbett and his wife hosted each year.
“Not only was he brilliant, but he and Marianne hosted these parties every year,” she said. “We always had so much fun. It was a mix of all different people.”
Judge Corbett met Marianne Boenigk in 1985 when she was hired to work as a secretary in his law office.
“Little by little we started having lunch together and we just formed a wonderful relationship,” she remembered. The couple were married in June 1988.
In 1989, Judge Corbett was recognized with the Courage to Come Back award by the St. Francis Health Foundation, and he was inducted into the Central Catholic Hall of Fame.
He was a devout Catholic who rarely passed up an opportunity to help young people, and few people knew that Judge Corbett regularly visited patients at the Children’s Institute of Pittsburgh, Dr. Friday said.
“He and I would spend hours just talking and being with the most despondent children and teenagers who were where he was when he dove into that swimming pool and severed his spine,” he said.
“He was the best of humanity. I was honored to have known John Corbett, and I’m just crushed from his loss. My soul weeps.”
Along with his wife, Judge Corbett is survived by his sister, Sharon Surrel, of Bloomfield, and his brother, Jeff Corbett, of Fallbrook, Calif.
His funeral was Wednesday.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to: Little Sisters of the Poor, 1028 Benton Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15212; Catholic Charities, 212 Ninth St., Pittsburgh, PA 15222; or North Hills Community Outreach 1975 Ferguson Road, Allison Park, PA 15101.