A part-Hawaiian Pearl Harbor shipyard supervisor will get a third chance to convince a jury of his claim that he was passed over for promotion in 2002 because the Navy favored Caucasians.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted Ronald L. Obrey Jr. a third trial in a decision that criticized the visiting federal judge who presided over the first two trials. The appeals court also ordered controversial U.S. District Judge Manuel Real of Los Angeles removed from the case.

Obrey, 53, a shipyard worker for more than 35 years who is seeking at least $300,000 in damages, was unsuccessful in his first two trials. His lawsuit alleges he wasn't promoted because the Navy discriminated against qualified candidates of Asian-Pacific ancestry.

Obrey appealed after the first trial. He was granted a retrial by the appeals court. But Obrey again was unsuccessful. Obrey and his lawyer Clayton Ikei appealed again.

On Tuesday, the appeals court granted a third trial.

The three-member panel said it was "troubled" by Real's "apparent unwillingness" to follow the appeals court's earlier decision outlining what testimony should be admitted in the retrial. To "preserve the appearance of justice," the court ordered a new judge be assigned to the third trial.

The court's decision this week said Real "abused" his discretion four times. Those errors included Real's prohibiting testimony by Obrey's expert witness James Dannemiller on selection processes in which no one was selected or in which only one candidate applied for a job; limiting Obrey's testimony; and refusing to permit three other Obrey witnesses from testifying in court, the appeals court said.

The appeals court said the new judge must follow its decisions, but should begin with "a clean slate" and is not bound by Real's earlier evidentiary rulings.

"He's a little bit exhausted," Ikei said about Obrey, who still works at the shipyard and will now go to trial again, probably sometime in 2007.

The lawyer said they were also "relieved."

"We're going to get a fair trial, especially with a new judge who I hope will be fair and impartial," Ikei said.

The federal attorney who handled the earlier trials could not be reached for comment.

Real was one of the federal judges occasionally brought here to help with the workload. He has presided over other Hawai'i cases, most notably the lawsuit by human rights victims of the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos that resulted in a $2 billion judgment against the Marcos estate in 1995.

But Real has also been the target of criticism.

The judicial council of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Real to be publicly reprimanded for his intervention in a Mainland bankruptcy case, according to published Associated Press reports. Real allegedly seized control of the case involving a defendant he knew, then allowed her to live rent-free in a house she had been ordered to vacate, the reports said.

The appeals court had not officially released the order because Real was challenging the decision, but the order was inadvertently released over the Internet, according to the reports.

Real had earlier denied any wrongdoing.

Reach Ken Kobayashi at kkobayashi@honoluluadvertiser.com.