Automotive Body Parts Association v. Ford Global Technologies, LLC

Filing 92

MEMORANDUM AND OPINION, ORDER re 65 Opposed MOTION to Disqualify Judge Amos L. Mazzant, III filed by Automotive Body Parts Association. Plaintiffs Motion to Disqualify (Dkt. #65) is hereby DENIED. Signed by Judge Amos L. Mazzant, III on 3/24/15. (cm, )

United States District Court
EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS
SHERMAN DIVISION

AUTOMOTIVE BODY PARTS
ASSOCIATION,

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v.
FORD GLOBAL TECHNOLOGIES, LLC

Case No. 4:13-CV-00705
Judge Mazzant

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Pending before the Court is Plaintiff’s Motion to Disqualify United States District
Court Judge (Dkt. #65). Having considered the relevant pleadings, the Court finds
Plaintiff’s Motion to Disqualify should be denied.
BACKGROUND
On November 7, 2014, the undersigned, then serving as a Magistrate Judge
assigned to this case, signed a Report and Recommendation recommending Ford Global
Technologies, LLC’s (“Ford”) motion to transfer venue be granted. Automotive Body
Parts

Association

(“ABPA”)

timely

served

objections

to

the

report

on

November 24, 2014. On December 19, 2014, the undersigned began performing his
duties as a United States District Court Judge, assigned to the Sherman Division. On
January 7, 2015, the docket was updated to reflect the case’s reassignment from the
undersigned in his role as a Magistrate Judge to the undersigned in his new role as a
United States District Court Judge. Shortly following this reassignment, the undersigned,
after considering all briefings on the motions, the Report and Recommendation, and all
objections, filed a Memorandum Opinion and Order granting Ford’s Motion to Transfer
Venue. (Dkt. #62). The Memorandum Opinion and Order contained the following
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footnote: “On November 7, 2014, the undersigned entered a report and recommendation
in this case as the United States Magistrate Judge to whom this case was referred. This
case is now assigned to the undersigned as the presiding United States District Judge, and
this memorandum opinion and order is issued accordingly.” (Dkt. #62).
On January 20, 2015, Plaintiff filed its Motion to Disqualify United States District
Court Judge. (Dkt. #65). Defendant filed its response on February 6, 2015. (Dkt. #74).
Plaintiff filed a reply to Defendant’s response on February 17, 2015. (Dkt. #78).
Defendant filed its sur-reply on February 27, 2015. (Dkt. #82).
LEGAL STANDARD
Under 28 U.S.C. § 455(a), “[a]ny justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United
States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might
reasonably be questioned.” 28 U.S.C. § 455(a). Disqualification is required where “a
reasonable person, knowing all of the facts, would harbor doubts concerning the judge's
impartiality.” Sensley v. Albritton, 385 F.3d 591, 599 (5th Cir. 2004). This is an objective
standard, which looks at “how things appear to the well-informed, thoughtful and
objective observer, rather than the hypersensitive, cynical, and suspicious person.” United
States v. Jordan, 49 F.3d 152, 156 (5th Cir. 1995).
“A motion to disqualify brought under 28 U.S.C. § 455 is ‘committed to the
sound discretion of the district judge’ . . . [and, as such, it is] reviewed for abuse of
discretion.” Sensley, 385 F.3d at 598 (internal citations omitted). In reviewing a motion to
disqualify, the district judge should be cautious and discriminating because “[a]
thoughtful observer understands that putting disqualification in the hands of a party,
whose real fear may be that the judge will apply rather than disregard the law, could

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introduce a bias into adjudication.” Id. at 599 (quoting In re Mason, 916 F.2d 384, 385–
86 (7th Cir. 1990)). This special care is necessary “to prevent parties from abusing
[section] 455 for a dilatory and litigious purpose based on little or no substantiated basis.”
Id. at 598 (internal quotations omitted). Because “Congress did not enact [section] 455(a)
to allow counsel to make a game of the federal judiciary's ethical obligations; [courts]
should seek to preserve the integrity of the statute by discouraging bad faith manipulation
of its rules for litigious advantage.” Delesdernier v. Porterie, 666 F.2d 116, 121 (5th Cir.
1982).
ANALYSIS
Plaintiff alleges that an appearance of impropriety was created by the undersigned
“issu[ing] an order on a motion that he already issued a report and recommendation on
when he was a Magistrate Judge.” (Dkt. #65 at 10). Plaintiff further asserts that the
“appearance problem” it believes was created by the undersigned issuing an order on a
motion that he previously issued a report and recommendation on as a magistrate judge
requires the undersigned’s disqualification from “ruling on the Motion to Transfer Venue
and any related motions in [the] matter.” (Dkt. #65 at 10). Plaintiff alternatively
complains that an appearance of impropriety was created because the undersigned’s order
“d[id] not review or address any of the objections filed by ABPA,” “d[id] not mention
that any type of a review was conducted,” and contained “no additional analysis from that
contained in the [report].” (Dkt. #65 at 2).
In support of its position, Plaintiff relies primarily on Dawson v. Marshall, 561
F.3d 930 (9th Cir. 2009), a Ninth Circuit case from 2009 which presents a similar fact
pattern involving a Magistrate Judge who issued a Report and Recommendation, was

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later commissioned as a United States District Court Judge and reassigned the case in his
new capacity, and subsequently issued an order regarding the same matter as he had
written his Report and Recommendation. (Dkt. #65 at 3). In deciding Dawson, the Ninth
Circuit noted that the Judge’s role in the case “violated no law and denied Dawson no
right,” concluding that the Judge’s role in the case was “proper.” Dawson, 561 F.3d at
933-34. The Court further noted that the case was “substantively indistinguishable from
the situation in which no magistrate judge ever made recommendations, but instead the
case remained with the district judge for disposition, without the magistrate judge's
[report]”—a situation the court stated “would pose no problem.” Id. at 933.
While the Ninth Circuit opined that “the practice of district judges reviewing
cases on which they previously sat as magistrate judges is not desirable,” it did not
indicate any reason why such a situation is not desirable beyond a cursory statement that
“there is a problem of appearances.” Id. at 933-34. It is unclear what possible “problem of
appearances” would exist in the present situation to cause a “well-informed, thoughtful
and objective observer,” with knowledge of all of the facts, to harbor doubts concerning
the undersigned’s impartiality.
The Ninth Circuit is not controlling precedent for this Court, and the persuasive
weight of Dawson in supporting the Plaintiff’s position is minimal. The action taken by
the Ninth Circuit in Dawson, which Plaintiff seeks to use as support, was undertaken
solely in its supervisory role over the district courts in that circuit. And, even in that
limited context, was explicitly labeled a suggestion rather than a requirement. Id. at 934
(“Therefore, in our supervisory capacity over the district courts of this Circuit, we
suggest that district courts avoid assigning new district judges to cases they handled as

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magistrates.”)

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(emphasis added). This suggestion cannot reasonably be viewed as

creating a basis for disqualification given the continued affirmation of the practice in the
Ninth Circuit. See, e.g., Lamon v. Ellis, 584 F. App’x 514, 516 (9th Cir. 2014) (holding
that a Judge's continuation with the case “neither prejudiced [the appellant] nor raised
Article III concerns” and describing Dawson as “holding the assignment of a district
judge to a case on which he had previously worked as a magistrate judge ‘violated no law
and denied [the appellant] no right.’”); Frye v. Warden, No. CIV S-99-0628 LKK DAD
(TEMP), (E.D. Ca. Jan. 14, 2011) (noting that under Dawson, “[r]eassignment of a case
to a district judge who presided over the case while a magistrate judge” is permissible,
but “should occur only rarely”).
As outlined above, the Ninth Circuit’s action in Dawson cannot reasonably be
understood as anything more than a non-binding suggestion made in the Circuit’s
supervisory capacity over the district courts beneath it. Nevertheless, Plaintiff cites to
Fredonia Broadcasting Corp., Inc. v. RCA Corp., for the assertion that the Ninth
Circuit’s view of the situation as “undesirable” ought to be controlling in light of the fact
that the Fifth Circuit has not adopted any analogous rule or guidance regarding the
matter. This argument is unconvincing, not only as Fredonia is easily distinguishable
from the case at hand, but also because, even if this Court was to give precedential effect
to Dawson under Fredonia, it would not require disqualification in the present case.
In Fredonia, a district court judge “considered the ethical canons and the rules
promulgated by the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit” but

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Even if one was persuaded by the Ninth Circuit’s suggestion, the implementation of such a rule in the
Sherman Division would be impracticable. Not only is the undersigned the only Judge currently seated in
Sherman, Texas, nearly the entire docket of civil cases to which he is currently assigned are cases he
previously handled as a magistrate judge.

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chose not to apply them because of the absence of a formal rule of the same nature in the
Fifth Circuit, a decision that the Fifth Circuit categorized as “erroneous.” Fredonia
Broad. Corp., Inc. v. RCA Corp., 569 F.2d 251, 255 (5th Cir. 1978). However, the rule at
issue in Fredonia was widely applied, and in failing to follow it, the judge ignored a rule
that was not only a promulgated rule of other circuits, but also that of the Supreme Court,
as well as being a canon of the American Bar Association’s Code of Professional
Responsibility, and the unpromulgated practice of numerous other federal courts. Id. at
255 n.5.
By contrast, to this Court’s knowledge, the Ninth Circuit is the only court to have
adopted a position regarding the practice of district judges reviewing cases on which they
previously sat as magistrate judges. Further, it has done so only as a suggestion made in
its supervisory capacity over the district courts in its Circuit, and even in that context, the
Ninth Circuit has not found assignment of a district judge to a case on which he had
previously worked as a magistrate judge to be a basis for disqualification. Fredonia does
not require this Court to apply the Ninth Circuit’s supervisory suggestion made in
Dawson as precedential. Even if it did, the result would be no different under the Ninth
Circuit’s precedent as it is under the Fifth Circuit’s: because a reasonable person would
not have any reason to question the undersigned’s impartiality, there is no need for
disqualification.
Similarly, Plaintiff’s complaints regarding the content of the undersigned’s
Memorandum Opinion are without merit. It is well established that a district court is
presumed to have performed its duty to make a de novo review. See, e.g., Brunig v.
Clark, 560 F.3d 292, 295 (5th Cir. 2009); Kreimerman v. Casa Veerkamp, S.A. de C.V.,

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22 F.3d 634, 646 (5th Cir. 1994); McGill v. Goff, 17 F.3d 729, 731-32 (5th Cir. 1994).
The Fifth Circuit has gone so far as to say that it is “compelled to believe that the district
court performed this duty” absent evidence to the contrary. Warren v. Miles, 230 F.3d
688, 694 (5th Cir. 2000). The extent of this presumption is illustrated by the Fifth
Circuit’s holding in Habets v. Waste Mgmt., Inc., which affirmed that a district court
undertook the “requisite de novo review” where the district court entered a two-sentence
order adopting the magistrate's recommendation without any opinion or analysis only one
day after it received a party’s objections, which included a 200–page appendix. Habets,
363 F.3d 378, 381 (5th Cir. 2004). In that case, the court specifically noted that “adoption
of the recommendation after one day did not imply a lack of review, [because] the district
court could have conducted a meaningful review without any objections.” Id. Further, the
court found a lack of “any pertinent case law that requires a district court to provide
analysis when it adopts a magistrate's recommendation for summary judgment.” Id. at
382.
As illustrated by Habets, Plaintiff’s complaints regarding the substance of the
Memorandum Opinion are insufficient to overcome the presumption that the undersigned
District Judge undertook the requisite de novo review. That the undersigned’s order
“d[id] not review or address any of the objections filed by ABPA,” “d[id] not mention
that any type of a review was conducted,” and contained “no additional analysis from that
contained in the [report]” is not itself evidence that the undersigned failed to perform his
duty. See Brunig, 560 F.3d at 295 (“bare fact that the district court's order does not
explicitly state that it conducted a de novo review. . . . is no evidence that the district
court did not conduct a de novo review.”); Kreimerman, 22 F.3d at 646 (“[Appellants] do

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little more than speculate that the district court may not have made a de novo review of
the instant case. They advance neither evidence nor specific factual allegations in support
of their prayer for reversal.”).
Plaintiff has failed to identify any evidence that would indicate that the
undersigned failed to perform his duty. The absence of such evidence compels a belief
that the undersigned performed his duty, and Plaintiff’s mere speculation is insufficient to
rebut the presumption, notwithstanding the fact that the undersigned did not specifically
address Plaintiff’s objections to the Report and Recommendation in his opinion. As such,
.

the Court finds that Plaintiff’s motion is denied.
CONCLUSION
It is therefore ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Motion to Disqualify (Dkt. #65) is
hereby DENIED.
SIGNED this 24th day of March, 2015.

___________________________________
AMOS L. MAZZANT
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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