Opinion ID: 17700
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The District Court Properly Applied the First-

Text: To-File Rule In sum, Cadle’s view of the first-to-file rule is supported by neither the policies behind the rule nor the cases that apply it. While the jurisdictional certainty of the first-filed court might be a proper factor for a district court to weigh in maximizing judicial economy, Cadle does not allege that the court below erred in this respect. Nor could it: the district court in this case was the second-filed court, and under Fifth Circuit precedent that balancing act is reserved only for the first-filed court. “Once the likelihood of a substantial overlap between the two suits ha[s] been demonstrated, it [is] was no longer up to the [second filed court] to resolve the question of whether both should be allowed to proceed.” Mann, 439 F.2d at 407. The district court correctly refused to act as a “super appellate court” by entertaining either Cadle’s jurisdiction or the defendants’ standing arguments, and properly limited its inquiry to the potential overlap between the two cases. By so limiting its 16 analysis, the district court indeed avoided trenching on the authority of its sister court, one of “the very abuses the first-to-file rule is designed to prevent.” Cadle, No. 971502, slip op. at 4.