Court Opinion

ID: 9722133
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:17:26.595853+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:30.814305
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE McDADE, specially concurring: I concur in the decision of the majority because the result is clearly supported by existing case law. I write separately to indicate my belief that “tipping the hand” is too subjective and elusive a standard to be susceptible in cases such as this to any meaningful kind of assessment by the trial court or review by the appellate court. It is a standard that can, as is evident in this case, be easily manipulated by the parties. While the trial court’s decision seems to have been consistent with the law, the standard itself seems to me to leave us poised at the top of a slippery slope. In the present case, defendant flagrantly disregarded multiple directives from the court to file an accounting of her use of the assets of the plaintiff estate while serving as guardian. As the number of her failures to do so mounted, the judge entered a rule to show cause why she should not be discharged and also indicated that she would need to support her claim for substantial expenses with proofs. No order was entered on the rule to show cause. Nor did the judge suggest how he would rule on the proofs, only that they would be required. I do not believe the judge did anything more than engage in sound case and courtroom management, and I do not see any objective way to characterize his conduct as “tipping the hand.” The second problem for me is that our standard of review is de novo, but even if we had a transcript of the proceedings, we would still be ignorant of inflection, facial expressions or body language that could more clearly indicate whether or not the judge had actually tipped his hand. We have no objective basis for making a meaningful judgment and are, therefore, totally reliant on the judge’s own subjective recollection and reconstruction in reviewing his decision. This standard seems totally inappropriate for de novo review. There is, for me, one additional concern with the use of the “tipping the hand” standard. It appears that an acknowledgment that one has “tipped his hand” is tantamount to a concession that he has prejudged the case and is, therefore, biased. It seems to me that such a finding ought to mandate a recusal rather than militating against it. As it now stands, if the judge has not formed an opinion and given the parties some inkling of what that opinion is, then a party is able to take a recusal as a matter of right; if, on the other hand, the judge has formed an opinion before the evidence has been presented and has tipped his hand to that effect, he must remain as the judge in the case. While I understand and appreciate the need to discourage forum shopping, this result makes no sense to me, even though it is supported by existing precedents.