Texas federal court district rebuffs effort to curb ‘judge-shopping’ tactic
CNN
A federal trial court in Texas commonly targeted by litigants as a way to guarantee a conservative judge will hear their case is rebuffing the push by US judiciary’s policy-making body to rein in the tactic, known as “judge-shopping”.
A federal trial court in Texas commonly targeted by litigants as a way to guarantee a conservative judge will hear their case is rebuffing the push by US judiciary’s policy-making body to rein in the tactic, known as “judge-shopping.” The US District Court of the Northern District of Texas has decided not to adopt a proposal that would change how cases with statewide or nationwide implications are assigned, Chief Judge David Godbey told Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, in a recent letter. Judge-shopping is the practice of strategically filing cases in courthouses where the lawsuits are almost guaranteed to be heard by judges perceived to be sympathetic to the litigants. It has been on the rise in recent years, particularly in Texas, where there are several individual courthouses – known as divisions – where just one or two judges hear all the cases that are filed there. The US District Court in Northern Texas currently assigns cases in a way that any case filed in its Amarillo Division is automatically assigned to Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump who has become a go-to judge for parties filing lawsuits challenging President Joe Biden’s policies. Kacsmaryk issued the ruling that would have suspended the FDA’s approval of medication abortion drugs and has also blocked other Biden administration initiatives. The March 29 letter from Godbey, an appointee of George W. Bush, is a response to a request by Schumer that his court implement a new case assignment proposal recommended by the Judicial Conference, the federal judiciary’s policy-making body. The conference recommended last month that any lawsuit seeking a nationwide or statewide order be randomly assigned among a district-wide pool of judges, even if it was filed in a single-judge division.
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