Breaking: Northern District of Texas Issues Nationwide Injunction Against Judicial Conference "Guidance" Document.

This court will not "make any change to our case assignment process at this time."

The headline is an April Fool's joke, but the subheadline is 100% accurate.

On Friday, Chief Judge David Godbey of the Northern District of Texas informed Senator Schumer that his court would not adopt the Judicial Conference's "guidance."

The district judges of the Northern District of Texas met on March 27, 2024, and discussed case assignment. The consensus was not to make any change to our case assignment process at this time.

Ten days ago I wrote the issue was "all-but-dead." Now the issue is dead dead. (My initial proposed headline was, to paraphrase the classic New York Daily News cover, NDTX to Judicial Conference: Drop Dead).

I think every member of the Judicial Conference needs to reflect on three important items.

First, they were responding to pure political pressure and anecdotal evidence rather than any actual systematic study of how different types of relief were sought in different courts. Judge Godbey's letter noted that the federal courts do not track the "type of remedy" sought in case filed in NDTX. To be sure, the Judicial Conference proposed their policy based on zero actual empirical research.

Second, this issue was viewed as so uncontroversial that it was placed on the no-discussion "consent calendar." How could these judges--in particular the Chief Judge of the Fifth Circuit--so misjudged this issue. This blowback should have been entirely foreseeable.

Third, the Conference had the misguided belief that this rule could be mandated as a matter of statutory authority, but then had to walk the issue back after "some scholars" called them out. If any agency arbitrarily switched their reasoning like this, it would be set aside. This passage from DHS v. Regents of the University of California comes to mind:

Justice Holmes famously wrote that "[m]en must turn square corners when they deal with the Government." Rock Island, A. & L. R. Co. v. United States, 254 U.S. 141, 143, 41 S.Ct. 55, 65 L.Ed. 188 (1920). But it is also true, particularly when so much is at stake, that "the Government should turn square corners in dealing with the people." St. Regis Paper Co. v. United States, 368 U.S. 208, 229, 82 S.Ct. 289, 7 L.Ed.2d 240 (1961) (Black, J., dissenting). The basic rule here is clear: An agency must defend its actions based on the reasons it gave when it acted. This is not the case for cutting corners to allow DHS to rely upon reasons absent from its original decision.

Et tu John Roberts?

Here are links to the various posts that I regrettably had to write in the span of four days:

1. The Judicial Conference Legislates From The Shadow Docket

2. The Judicial Conference's New "Policy" Demonstrates Why Judges Should Not Make Policy

3. Senators McConnell, Cornyn, and Tillis Send Letters To Chief Judges About Judicial Conference "Policy"

4. How Many Judges Sit In Single Judge Divisions?

5. Where does the Judicial Conference Get the Authority To Mandate Case Assignments?

6. The Text Of The Policy Approved By The Judicial Conference

7. A Comment On The Judicial Conference's Policy From A Fifth Circuit Practitioner

8. A Numbers Game: Who Would The Judicial Conference's New Policy Help And Who Would It Hurt?

9. The Priorities of the Judicial Conference of the United States

I am working on an article about how to actually reform the issue of forum selection and nationwide relief. The working title: Make Three-Judge Panels Great Again. And if the Justices really are unhappy with how the lower courts are behaving, the follow-up article will be titled Make Circuit Riding Great Again.

Comments

[LoganMankins]

I mean you don't need to write a whole article to just make a law directing all nation wide injunction reliefs be filed in the DC enclave.

Trying to put a band-aid by fixing what they do in redistricting cases (3 judge panel) won't work given the makeup of certain districts + their appellate court - most notably in the fifth circuit. I doubt a solution resulting in Kacsmyrk, Ho, Jones on a three judge panel where a plaintiff is seeking a nationwide injunction will do anything.

[Mark Regan]

Thanks for correcting the "arbitrarily agency" typo in the original version. Please correct the grammar in the first sentence, and the spelling in the second:
"How could these judges–in particular the Chief Judge of the Fifth Circuit–so misjudges this issue. This blowback should have been entirely forseeable."

[apedad]

"If any agency arbitrarily switched their reasoning like this . . . . "

Prof. Blackman is equating the Judicial Conference to an agency?!?

Ooof. That's not going to go over well at the swanky, legal conferences he likes to attend.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Why can’t Congress just consider a bill providing a legislative fix?

Each side wants judge-shopping injunctions when the other side is in power, but when they’re in power they’re all for judicial restraint. I suppose this will lead to gridlock in Congress on the details of any reform bill.

Solution: schedule the law to take effect at a time when we won’t know who will be in power. Then maybe Congress can discuss the merits of the bill rather than how it gores their particular oxen.

[Armchair]

Congress can consider such a bill. The issue is, such a bill would have both sides needing to make a compromise.

By instead pressuring the Judicial Conference to make a change, one side would get all their goals without needing to compromise.

[Martinned2]

Why is rigging the system for allocating judges a "side"?

[SimonP]

No, it’s not particularly surprising that district court judges fond of abusing power will not voluntarily accept attempts to limit that abuse, and will indeed seek every possible shred of an argument out of such limits.

I also do not expect this man-child of a VC contributor to have anything particularly helpful to say about the topic.

[Causter]

> Make Circuit Riding Again

Ah yes, just what we need, another excuse for the Royal Court of King Roberts to decide fewer cases and thus preserve their legitimacy (by only deciding the really controversial cases).

[John F. Carr]

Judge Mark "double the t" Pittman of the Northern District of Texas just refused to hear a challenge to CFPB rules that had been filed in Texas to get a more favorable judge. He did not want the case to land on his desk because plaintiffs thought he was a friend of theirs. He transferred the case to D.C.
Quoting Bloomberg:

“There is no unique or particular impact felt in the Northern District of Texas and little if any of the events surrounding the Rule have occurred here,” Pittman wrote in his Thursday order transferring the case to the US District Court for the District of Columbia.
“Venue is not a continental breakfast; you cannot pick and choose on a Plaintiffs’ whim where and how a lawsuit is filed,” he added.
The dispute comes amid concerns that industry groups and others have engaged in rampant forum shopping to block federal regulations. The Judicial Conference, the judiciary’s policy arm, issued a new policy earlier this month seeking to curb judge shopping.
Pittman noted, however, that the Northern District of Texas has a busier docket than the Washington, D.C., court and a longer median time to resolve cases. “Given Plaintiffs’ insistence that time is of the essence for this case, this factor heavily favors transfer,” he said.

The challenged rules limit credit card late fees. I have no opinion on whether they are consistent with the enabling statute and the Administrative Procedure Act.

[Please, Daivd, Seek Help]

"had to write"

yeah people really put a gun to your head to hear more about how Very Concerned you were about the Complete Collapse of Society because *checks notes* an advisory group released a press release announcing their new policy two days before they released the policy. If you didn't write those pieces, the Earth would have stopped spinning.

While we're at it, using the "Make Great Again" bumper sticker title is garish, distracts from your point by invoking the elephant in the room, and most importantly, is boring as hell because you're the 85,071,814th person to do it.