Robert M. Weston Papers

Robert Meck Weston was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania on April 4, 1910, the son of Edgar C. Weston and Catherine (Meck) Weston. He received his A.B. degree from Ohio State University in 1932 and an L.L.B. degree in 1933. He was admitted to the Ohio State Bar in 1933, the New York Bar in 1935 and the District of Columbia Bar in 1947. After finishing his law studies, Weston entered private practice with the New York firm of Travis, Brownback and Paxson, a firm representing the Associated Gas System. Both the firm and the Association folded in 1940.

In 1940 Weston entered Federal service as a special assistant at the Civil Aeronautics Board on rate and franchise studies. A year later he transferred to the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice. He was operating head of a team which made the basic investigation of the Standard Oil-I.G. Farben Cartel. In connection with this project he served in 1942 in the Office of the General Counsel, the Treasury Department, as well as the Office of the Alien Property Custodian. In 1942 Weston volunteered for aviation service in the Naval Reserve, receiving his commission on August 17th as lieutenant

He served on active duty until December, 1945, retaining his commission in the Naval Reserve as a lieutenant commander. In August, 1947, Weston resumed his legal career in the Tax Division of the Justice Department. Until his resignation in February, 1952, he served as an attorney, a trial attorney (tax), and finally as a chief trial attorney, with the status of Special Assistant to the Attorney General for tax ligation. In that capacity he handled 27 cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals. In 1953, Weston was appointed by the President to the Public Utilities Commission, where he wrote decisions concerning the rates and regulations of the local gas, electric, telephone and transit utilities. The papers from the Commission center primarily on the Capital Transit Company case in which Weston participated actively by drafting the legislation for the creation of a publicly owned Washington area operating transit authority. In 1956 Weston was appointed to the Federal Power Commission serving on the General Counsel's staff. In July, 1958 he became a Hearing Examiner on the Commission. In 1968 Weston was appointed the sole judge of the D.C. Tax Court. He served in that position until 1971 when a reorganization of the District's court system merged the tax court with the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. From 1971 until his retirement in 1973, Robert Weston served as a judge with the Superior Court. Apart from his long legal career, Weston was active in numerous political and civic matters. He was first registered as a Republican, but describes that he was "in effect discharged from that party for cause (liberalism) in 1956." He was subsequently registered as an independent until 1966 when he became a "registered and contributing" Democrat. A resident of the District of Columbia since 1939, Weston had an active concern for the city's well-being. Weston served on such associations as: The Washington Urban League (former director), the D.C. Citizens for Better Public Education (Chairman, Committee on Higher Education), the Commission on Human Resources of the Washington Center for Metropolitan Studies, as a former Chairman of the Washington Area Congregational Social Action Committee, as a member of the Community Affairs and Judicial Selection Committee of the D.C. Chapter of the Federal Bar Association and as a member of the Commissioner's Public Welfare Advisory Council. Weston was married to Elizabeth Wellman, who was a fellow graduate of the Ohio State Law School. They had two children, Robert Meck, Jr., and Linda Weston Pierce. Judge Weston died on April 11, 1977.