Devastating Decisions Have Come From Texas’ Northern District In Recent Months, Highlighting The Glaring Loopholes That Undermine Free And Fair Trials – Majority Leader Schumer Pushes to End Dangerous Practice of Forum Shopping To Bring Confidence Back To Judicial System

Washington, D.C. – Today, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) sent the following letter to the Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, David Godbey, urging Chief Judge Godbey to reform the District Court’s method of assigning cases, noting that litigants can now effectively choose which judge will hear their cases, undermining free and fair trials.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today is calling on Chief Judge Godbey of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas to end his district’s unfair method of assigning cases to judges, which effectively allows litigants to choose which judge will hear their case.  Even though there are 16 total judges who could hear cases, many divisions of the District have only one or two judges who will be assigned if a civil case is filed there. Plaintiffs have taken unfair advantage of this practice to hand-pick district judges who they see as sympathetic to their cases.

“Americans need to have faith in the judicial process,” said Leader Schumer. “The Northern District of Texas should not continue a practice that allows litigants to undermine the integrity of these federal cases and the subsequent decisions. In the past few years, the country has seen the downside of allowing plaintiffs to hand-pick their desired judges. The result? Chaotic and flawed rulings on abortion access, LGBTQ+ protections, legal immigration, and climate legislation. Our country cannot afford to let these practices continue unchecked – wherever they may occur.”

At the beginning of this month, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmarky issued a ruling suspending the FDA approval of mifepristone, an abortion drug that has been available for decades. Currently, Judge Kacsmarky is the only judge in the Amarillo Division and subsequently any case filed there will necessarily be assigned to him. In his past rulings, Kacsmarky has shown himself to be sympathetic to the anti-abortion movement, and it is clear that he was targeted specifically for this purpose. His ruling was unprecedented – marking the first time a judge has taken a drug off the market against the objections of the FDA.

There is no legal requirement for the Northern District to assign cases in this way. While this is a large geographical district, other districts – such as the Northern District of New York – assign cases randomly among all district judges currently serving. There is also recent precedent in Texas regarding how cases are assigned due to forum-shopping concerns. Last year, the Western District of Texas changed its case-assignment rules for patent cases filed in Waco.

The full text of the letter can be found here and below.

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Dear Chief Judge Godbey:

I write to you today urging you to reform the method of assigning cases to judges in your federal district. As Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, you have the authority to files orders governing how cases filed in your district are assigned to judges. Even though the Northern District has twelve active judges and another four senior judges who still hear cases, your orders provide that civil cases filed in many divisions are always assigned to a single judge, or to one of just a few. Cases filed in the Amarillo Division are always assigned to Judge Kacsmaryk; cases filed in the Wichita Falls Division are always assigned to Judge O’Connor; and cases filed in the Abeline, Lubbock, and San Angelo Divisions are split between just two judges. As a result of your recent assignment orders, plaintiffs in your district can now effectively choose the judge who will hear their cases.

Unsurprisingly, litigants have taken advantage of these orders to hand-pick individual district judges seen as particularly sympathetic to their claims. The State of Texas itself is the most egregious example. It has sued the Biden Administration at least 29 times in Texas federal district courts, but it has not filed even one of those cases in Austin, where the Texas Attorney General’s office is located. Instead, Texas has always sued in divisions where case-assignment procedures ensure that a particular preferred judge or one of a handful of preferred judges will hear the case. That includes the Northern District’s Amarillo Division, where Texas has filed seven of its cases against the federal government. Many other litigants have done the same, including the Alliance Defending Freedom in its case challenging the FDA’s approval of mifepristone.

Nothing requires the Northern District to let plaintiffs hand-pick their judges like this. Federal law splits the Northern District into seven divisions, but that is a geographical division only. The purpose of the split is to reduce travel times for jurors, criminal defendants, and other local litigants by allowing cases to be tried locally. Particularly with electronic filing, that division does not need to affect judicial assignments at all. Other district courts with many rural divisions divide civil cases randomly between all their judges, regardless of where the case is filed. The Northern District of New York is—like the Northern District of Texas—a geographically large district split into many divisions. But the Northern District of New York assigns all of its judges to all of its divisions and randomly divides all cases between all of them, regardless of where the cases are file‌‌d. A litigant in the Northern District of New York therefore cannot pick its judge by filing suit in Plattsburgh instead of Utica. The Western District of Missouri is similar. And the Western District of Texas last year changed its case-assignment rules for patent cases filed in Waco—apparently in response to forum-shopping concerns—so that such cases are now randomly assigned between all eleven active judges in the district and one senior judge.

The Northern District of Texas could, and should, adopt a similar rule for all civil cases. Currently, a federal statute allows each district court to decide for itself how to assign cases. This gives courts the flexibility to address individual circumstances in their districts and among their judges. But if that flexibility continues to allow litigants to hand-pick their preferred judges and effectively guarantee their preferred outcomes, Congress will consider more prescriptive requirements.

Sincerely,

Charles E. Schumer

United States Senator