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.

Comments

[Noscitur a sociis]

If there’s a judicial opinion that actually needed to be 230 pages long, I’ve yet to encounter it.

[Kazinski]

Doesn't seem like a typical case:

"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."

The 3 judge panel did issue a 53 page "final report", but after an an 11 month investigation there may well be other evidence and conclusions that needed attention.

[Please, Daivd, Seek Help]

It looks like in this opinion, the first 100 pages is background, the findings of fact are 35 pages (with, as you note, 11 respondents whose case are considered separately), and then the section on the sanctions is 85 pages, of which 75 pages are on sanctions for 2 particular respondents, of which almost 70 pages are rejecting the respondents arguments that they shouldn't be sanctioned and only 5 pages are the actual sanctions. And the house style for this court is a large font size and double line spacing.

[MollyGodiva]

I am against all judge-shopping and was disappointed when the federal judiciary refused to enact rules to cut it down.

What the lawyers did in this case was indefensible.

Someone please tell me how this is bad and how Republicans filing their cases in the Northern District of Texas so that Judge Kacsmaryk will hear it.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Someone please Molly finish a sentence.

[rswallen]

Simple: Both are bad. Of the two, this is the worst.

[neurodoc]

Why? Because you are more favorably inclined toward Kacsmaryk's undeniable biases? Personally, I think his are far the worse of the two because they are so often an affront to religious neutrality and as such only exaggerate the ill effects of the Supremes 6-3 tilt.

[rswallen]

I'm talking about the act of judge shopping, not the potential impact of judge shopping, and not the reasoning of judicial decisions. I'm not a fan of any party gaming the system to try to get a judge who will give them a favorable outcome. I haven't read any of Kacsmaryk's opinions, so I can't speak to his biases, though I'm sure he has them.

Why is this instance worse than filing Northern District of Texas so that Judge Kacsmaryk will hear it? Its simple: the constant refiling until they get a judge they like. Again, I don't like it when Republicans choose where to file cases based on the likelihood of getting a favorable judge. Maybe they aren't doing the refiling because they don't need to. If/When they do, it will be on par with this.

[John F. Carr]

How can something so simple be drawn out into 230 pages?

[dwb68]

The real crime: 230 pages.
Its not a punch if its buried in paperwork.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Carter left office 45 years ago -- a judge he appointed has to be pushing 90...

[tylertusta]

A JFK appointee was serving until 2018.

[Noscitur a sociis]

There are several senior circuit and district judges who were appointed by Nixon.

[Noscitur a sociis]

You know you’re allowed to look this stuff up, right?

He’s 78. (Almost old enough to run for president!)

[Voize of Reazon]

Filing cases, consistent with local rules and venue choices created by Congress, is entirely lawful.

Dismissing cases and filing new ones with different plaintiffs is entirely lawful too. The issue isn't what they did, it's why they did it.

[TheAmazingEmu]

A. Judge Shopping can be consistent with local rules and venue choices made by Congress. It doesn't make it less Judge shopping if you pick a jurisdiction you're confident about from the beginning.

B. Based on the excerpts (I'm not reading 230 pages), it's unclear how the actions of these plaintiffs were inconsistent with local rules (or FRCP) and venue choices made by Congress.

[ReaderY]

I think there’s an underlying problem. Our legal system assumes plaintiffs are the people who have an actual dispute, initiate cases, and hire attorneys to represent them. But in reality, attorneys are often the ones who have an actual dispute and initiate cases, and attorneys hire plaintiffs solely because they have to to fill technical requirements of lawsuit law, much as they hire process servers. These are straw plaintiffs, with no say in how the case is conducted.

If plaintiffs were real parties rather than figurehead straw parties, there would be no problem with the same attorneys representing two groups of plaintiffs in two different districts filing similar cases. But the whole problem here is that the “plaintiffs” were nothing of the sort, and indeed had no say in the lawsuit at all. It appears to have meant nothing to them whether “their” lawsuit was dismissed or not.

They don’t appear to have had enough skin in the game to have even cared.

Yet the whole purpose of Article III standing is to ensure that plaintiffs have skin in the game, care about the outcomes of their cases, and are the drivers of them rather than having their names put there by the lawyers solely to comply with a technical rule that there has to be a human name other than the lawyer on the mast of the case.

[David Nieporent]

But if you're not seeking monetary damages, but merely injunctive relief to prevent a law from being enforced, then it really doesn't matter to you whether your name is in the caption or not. (Unless you're egotistical and hope to go down in the history books like Linda Brown or Clarence Earl Gideon or Jane Roe.)

[Savagely Average]

This is a much more concise version of what I was trying to say below.

[y81]

That is true, but it fits sort of uneasily with the rules of standing and pleading. Hence the possibility of manipulating the system. A complex system, which doubtless contains internal contradictions, necessitates a set of sometimes ad hoc rules for its maintenance. If you happen to step over the boundary of one of those rules, you may be punished, even though someone who did almost the same thing is not. In this case, clearly the lawyers were gaming the system even more aggressively than most, and the powers that be have decided that they crossed the line.

[Savagely Average]

Maybe I’m misreading it, but it seems like your position is that the plaintiffs agreeing to have their lawsuit dismissed indicates they didn’t actually care about the case. I don’t think that argument holds up.

If you’re a parent who wants your child to have a sex change treatment, all you care about is that enforcement of a law against that treatment be enjoined. You don’t care If the injunction issues through your own case or some one else’s - you just want it to issue.

So, if your lawyer persuasively explains to you that the best way to get the injunction to issue is to dismiss your case and file the lawsuit with someone else as plaintiff, you’ll likely agree to that. Your agreement doesn’t mean you have no investment in the outcome. It just means you accept that the best strategy to get the real-world outcome you want is to dismiss your case.

[Dr. Ed 2]

You are committing a fraud -- the same lawyer ought not be able to take both cases where the goal is equally shared.

Isn't this essentially what class action lawsuits are for?

[Savagely Average]

I need you to unpack what “fraud” you think is happening here.

I think the issue is less dishonesty and more the unfairness/waste of judicial resources caused by the plaintiffs re-rolling until they get the judge they want.

Their conduct may also have been unnecessary - this was back when Trump-appointed district judges were still enjoining these laws left and right.

[Consarnit]

"Carl Charles," an overzealous midwit activist juiced up on testosterone and a lifetime of coddling, lying over and over about something easily disproven (whether Carl called the court) to a panel of the chief judges of multiple districts is incredible.

[GKHoff]

A related practice I've been told about (but have not personally witnessed) is to file the same lawsuit with different plaintiffs in various federal district courts, all hoping to get them assigned to one or more particular district judges who are thought to be favorably disposed. Cases that don't get assigned to the right judge are dismissed immediately. When a case is assigned to a target judge, the other cases are dismissed.