Court Opinion

ID: 9598606
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:10:07.585913+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:50:05.125730
License: Public Domain

WALTERS, Judge (specially concurring).  I especially agree with Chief Judge Wood’s opinion, not only because a purported local rule was not of record or filed with the Supreme Court, but principally because due process demands adequate notice regardless of any rule, and regardless of who initiates the notice. The record denies its existence in this case. I cannot agree with my esteemed colleague, Judge Sutin, that a district judge of the Second Judicial District is, by “mandate” of the local rules, without authority to initiate a trial setting. Local Rule 18(c)(6) referred to by both Judges Wood and Sutin is concerned with “Requests for Hearings,” and provides that the attorneys “may” send such requests to the assigned judge for trial settings. Nothing in the rules prevents the trial judge from making a setting without such a request.