Federal Judge Sanctions Attorneys For Judge-Shopping

No, this did not occur in Texas.

Last March, I wrote about progressive attorneys in Alabama who tried to steer a transgender case to a Carter appointee. At the time, the court found there were surreptitious steps taken. Now, Judge Liles C. Burke issued a 230-page opinion that sanctioned three attorneys The Court refers one of the attorneys for potential prosecution to the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama.

Here is the introduction:

This case requires the Court to consider a malignant practice that threatens the orderly administration of justice: judge-shopping. The lead attorneys in this case— a high-profile challenge to Alabama state law—tried to avoid their assigned judge by voluntarily dismissing one case and filing anew with different plaintiffs in a neighboring federal district court. This was not just a strategic litigation decision; it was a calculated effort to subvert the rule of law.

The case began in April 2022, when two teams of attorneys from some of the nation's leading law firms and advocacy groups sued the State of Alabama to block enforcement of a new felony healthcare ban on medical treatments for transgender minors. The attorneys had labored over these cases for nearly two years in advance so they could sue the State as soon as the proposed ban became law; and when the Governor signed the legislation on April 8, 2022, they sued immediately. The first case, Ladinsky v. Ivey, was filed that afternoon, No. 5:22-cv-447-LCB (N.D. Ala. Apr. 8, 2022) ("Ladinsky"). The second, Walker v. Marshall, was filed the following Monday, No. 5:22-cv-480-LCB (N.D. Ala. Apr. 11, 2022) ("Walker"). Both teams felt immense pressure to secure an injunction before the law's May 8 effective date. But within a week, both teams abandoned their cases. Walker and Ladinsky were reassigned to this Court on the afternoon of April 15, and less than two hours later each team had voluntarily dismissed its case under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i). By their own admission, these attorneys were "try[ing] to game the system": one team abandoned the litigation altogether, while the other dropped everything, regrouped, mustered new plaintiffs, and filed suit in another federal district court for the express purpose of manipulating the courts' random case-assignment procedures to avoid the risk of an unfavorable judgment from this Court. In re Vague, 2:22-mc-3977, Doc. 75 at 141. . . .

But the plaintiffs' filings in Walker and Ladinsky sparked concern among the federal bench that counsel had tried either to manipulate or circumvent the random case-assignment procedures for the Northern and Middle Districts of Alabama. In May 2022, a three-judge panel consisting of the chief judges for the Northern, Middle, and Southern Districts of Alabama (or their designees) was convened to investigate their conduct. After six months developing a substantial evidentiary record and eleven months deliberating, the Panel found that eleven lead attorneys from Walker and Ladinsky (the "Respondents") had committed misconduct by judge-shopping. Doc. 339. On October 3, 2023, the Panel published its findings in a 53-page Final Report of Inquiry, which it referred to this Court for further proceedings. . . .

Now, for the reasons discussed below, the Court PUBLICLY REPRIMANDS attorneys Melody Eagan and Jeffrey Doss for their intentional, bad-faith attempts to manipulate the random case assignment procedures for the Northern and Middle Districts of Alabama, DISQUALIFIES them from further participation in this case, and REFERS the matter of their professional misconduct to the Alabama State Bar. The Court declines to exercise its discretion to suspend Eagan and Doss from practice in the Middle District of Alabama. Moreover, the Court PUBLICLY REPRIMANDS Carl Charles for his repeated, intentional, bad-faith misrepresentations of key facts to the three-judge panel about his call to Judge Thompson's chambers, imposes MONETARY SANCTIONS in the amount of $5,000, and REFERS this matter to the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama and Charles's licensing bar organizations.

This is actual judge shopping, and it is problematic. Filing cases, consistent with local rules and venue choices created by Congress, is entirely lawful.