Court Opinion

ID: 9439904
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 06:53:06.575394+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:26:41.815695
License: Public Domain

CAMPBELL, Senior Circuit Judge,
(dissenting).
While the question is exceedingly close, I regret that I cannot agree with the court. The court’s opinion would be persuasive if written before the Judicial Conference of the United States had adopted Canon 3D of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges. But the court’s opinion seems to me to pay too little attention to the district court’s failure to have observed the Canon. Canon 3D provides,
A judge disqualified by the terms of Canon 3C(1), except in the circumstances specifically set out in subsections (a) through (e) may, instead of withdrawing from the pro*1266ceeding, disclose on the record the basis of disqualification. If the parties and their lawyers after such disclosure and an opportunity to confer outside of the presence of the judge, all agree in writing or on the record that the judge should not be disqualified, and the judge is then willing to participate, the judge may participate in the proceeding. The agreement shall be incorporated in the record of the proceeding. (emphasis added).
Canon 3D applies squarely to the situation here, in which a judge has sought the parties’ waiver of his mandatory disqualification under § 456(a). Congress expressly allows a judge to accept a waiver of his disqualification under § 455(a) (appearance of lack of impartiality) although not under § 455(b) (bias, personal knowledge of facts, financial interest, etc.). See 28 U.S.C. § 455(e). But while § 455(e) specifies no more than that such waiver be preceded “by a full disclosure on the record of the basis for disqualification,” the judiciary is also subject to its own Canon 3D which imposes additional conditions that were not followed here. For that reason, I disagree that the parties ever effectively waived the duty imposed by § 455(a) that the judge disqualify himself.
I make two points at the outset. First, as my colleagues seem to concede, the judge’s employment, as his own lawyer, of the senior partner of the law firm representing plaintiffs at the time he was considering a major dispositive motion in plaintiffs’ lawsuit, gave rise to a reasonable question of his impartiality under § 455(a). While this was hardly a major indiscretion as such matters go, it was the kind of conduct that gives rise to an appearance of impropriety. Our court is in apparent agreement as to the applicability of § 455(a). However, because the district court felt otherwise, and because the issue deserves consideration, I have stated my reasons for finding that § 455(a) applies in an appendix to this dissent. Section 455(a) required the judge to disqualify himself sua sponte unless he received and accepted an appropriate waiver from the parties.
A second point is that the proceedings at the January 12 conference — at which the judge candidly and commendably disclosed the matter — omitted to follow Canon 3D in basic ways. Canon 3D was developed to offset the criticism that otherwise disqualified judges sometimes secured the parties’ agreement to allow them to continue in cases by taking advantage of counsel’s natural reluctance to offend a judge before whom they frequently had to appear. The original language of Canon 3D was drafted by a special committee of the American Bar Association chaired by the former chief justice of the Supreme Court of California, Justice Tray-nor. Justice Traynor emphasized that, before a valid waiver could occur, counsel must receive an opportunity to confer with their clients outside the judge’s presence. The special committee also believed that the client as well as counsel had to be involved in the waiver decision, as the “parties are less likely than counsel to feel judicial pressure [to remain in the case].... ” Broadening and Clarifying the Grounds for Judicial Disqualification: Hearing on S. 1061/. Before the Suhcomm. of Courts, Civil Liberties and the Administrative Justice of the House Comm, on the Judiciary, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. (1974).
The Canon serves in part to dispel counsel’s sense that by failing immediately to endorse the judge’s continued presence in the case, counsel might annoy the judge and prejudice their cause. Under the Canon, counsel must be extended an opportunity to consider the disqualification issue outside the judge’s presence, hence free from the fear that any hesitancy to endorse the judge’s continued presence may be personally held against him.
In the present case, the judge never stated that local counsel was free to withdraw and discuss disqualification with his client and co-counsel. The judge knew or should have known at this time that counsel had no prior opportunity to discuss the issue with his client. The judge had not disclosed the subject of the conference in advance. Local counsel had made express inquiry the day previous as to what the January 12 meeting would be about and could learn nothing. Counsel, therefore, could not have discussed the issue with his client and lead counsel prior to the meeting. When he came to the *1267conference, local counsel had to react on the spur of the moment, without knowing what rights the judge was prepared to recognize, without knowing whether the judge would recuse himself if counsel objected, and without reassurance from the court that, without offense, local counsel would be given a chance to consider this matter with his client outside of the court’s presence. The express language of the Canon, conditioning a waiver upon an opportunity to confer with the parties and counsel outside the judge’s presence, was not, in these circumstances, put into play.
In hindsight, to be sure, local counsel could have sought to save the situation by requesting time to talk to lead counsel and his client — a request the judge indicates he would have granted. However, without the judge’s advance advice, counsel would not necessarily be expected to know of his rights under Canon 3D, or indeed to know that Canon 3D existed at all. Moreover, counsel may have felt that, where the judge stated that the disclosed conduct would not affect his ability to decide the case, and indicated no clear willingness to withdraw, any hesitancy would simply be an irritant. The duty to extend the benefits of this Canon to the parties rests upon the judge. Here the judge did not mention the provisions of the Canon nor indicate what rights he would recognize.
In such circumstances, I think it plain that no waiver occurred on January 12. In fact, the scenario at the January 12 conference was exactly the one that Canon 3D was intended to change. The drafters of Canon 3D thought that a judge who simply announced disqualifying facts, indicated his desire to continue to serve, and solicited and accepted oral waivers from the attorneys present, might be exercising a “velvet blackjack.” Broadening and Clarifying the Grounds for Judicial Disqualification: Hearing on S. 1064. Before the Subcomm. of Courts, Civil Liberties and the Administrative Justice of the House Comm, on the Judiciary, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. (1974). Canon 3D, by requiring discussion with the clients outside the judge’s presence and, by requiring the clients’ acquiescence as well as that of counsel, sought to ease the pressures to acquiesce that inhered in the “old” process.
It is true that the Code of Judicial Conduct is not statutory, nor does the Judicial Conference of the United States which adopted the Code hold a specific statutory grant of authority to enact binding ethical rules. However, the Conference is itself a creature of statute. See 28 U.S.C. § 331. Chaired by the Chief Justice, the Conference is the one body recognized as speaking administratively for the entire federal judiciary. Its adoption of Canon 3D, I suggest, gives the Canon great persuasive weight. Additionally, the provisions of Canon 3D emanated from a model ethical code drafted by the American Bar Association and adopted in one or another version, by many states. It is important, I think, to our institutional credibility, that the procedures set out in Canon 3D of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges be taken seriously.
As, in my view, no waiver occurred by force of local counsel’s acquiescence on January 12, the question arises whether some kind of de facto waiver or equitable bar should be implied from Cargill’s failure to object promptly to the judge’s continued participation once its local counsel had told it of the judge’s disclosures. Cargill also learned at the January 12 conference that the judge was about to hand down his ruling. If Car-gill did not want the judge to participate, my colleagues believe that Cargill was required to protest then and there, rather than strategically waiting to see how the wind blew, objecting — as it did — only after the judge had ruled against it.
This is a close question. There is certainly weight to my colleagues’ view that Cargill may be misusing the Canon now for purely strategic purposes. It can be implied, moreover, that the district court having fully revealed the conduct in question, sincerely, if incorrectly under the Canon, relied on local counsel’s approval, not withdrawn, as sanctioning the court’s continuance in the case. But while reasonable minds may differ, I believe that the court’s failure to follow Canon 3D’s waiver procedures so clouded future events as to make it inappropriate to read *1268too much into Cargill’s failure to challenge the judge’s continued participation during the week prior to the court’s ruling on the motion. A primary purpose of the procedure outlined in the Canon is to remove, or at least to lessen, the pressure of the judge’s feared resentment if a waiver is not quickly volunteered. This lessening of pressure would not have happened here. The Canon anticipates that the court will reassure attorneys in advance of their right to speak to their clients out of the judge’s presence. Also that the judge will inform counsel that he will withdraw if waiver is not granted, or, at least, of his intentions in this regard. In the present case, by the time Cargill learned of the judge’s stated grounds for disqualification, the judge had already made the decision not to recuse himself. At that point, Cargill had no assurance that its repudiation of local counsel’s acquiescence would be honored. It had to decide whether to risk angering the judge futilely at a time when the matter seemed to have been settled and a decision on its motion was imminent.
To be sure, Cargill’s local counsel could have acted differently. It is often true — and properly so — that a client is bound by positions taken or not taken by his attorney. Canon 3D makes it clear, however, that attorney acquiescence, standing alone, is not enough to constitute a waiver. Local counsel’s acquiescence followed by Cargill’s reluctance to object cannot be disassociated from the judge’s initial failure to implement the Canon provision — a provision that the judge himself is responsible for explaining and implementing in the first instance. Canon 3D, setting out the requirements for a judge to secure a valid waiver of his own disqualification, is not mere grist for the adversarial mill. Rather, it is a rule of conduct the judge is supposed to know and apply. While Car-gill’s counsel might have saved the situation, responsibility for the error should not too easily be shifted to the shoulders of one of the parties. Given the altered situation confronting Cargill once the die had been cast on January 12,1 am not disposed to find that Cargill ratified local counsel’s earlier acquiescence simply by taking no action before the court’s decision.
Cargill, to be sure, had to act diligently if it wished to challenge the judge. Delay would soon become unfair to Cargill’s opponent, who would continue to invest money and effort into the lawsuit in reliance upon the continued service of the judge in question. But Cargill’s raising of an objection within a month after the decision seems to me to be acceptable given that the initial error was that of the judge, not Cargill. In so saying, I recognize the validity of my colleagues’ concern that Cargill may well be acting strategically, and that courts are, and should be, reluctant to allow two bites at the apple. But against this must be weighed the nonobservanee of Canon 3D.
As § 455(a) applied and, in my view, no sufficient waiver occurred under § 455(e), the question of remedy arises. In Liljeberg v. Health Serv. Acquisition Corp., 486 U.S. 847, 862-64, 108 S.Ct. 2194, 2203-05, 100 L.Ed.2d 855 (1988), the Supreme Court wrote:
A conclusion that a [§ 455(a)] violation occurred does not, however, end our inquiry. As in other areas of the law, there is surely room for harmless error committed by busy judges who inadvertently overlook a disqualifying circumstance. There need not be a draconian remedy for every violation of § 455(a).... We conclude that in determining whether a judgment should be vacated for a violation of § 455(a), it is appropriate to consider the risk of injustice to the parties in the particular case, the risk that the denial of relief will produce injustice in other cases, and the risk of undermining the public’s confidence in the judicial process.
See also In re Allied-Signal, Inc., 891 F.2d 974, 975-76 (1st Cir.1989).
For a new judge to be brought in at this juncture would not, in my view, be a draconian remedy, nor a license for unwarranted attacks on courts. To be sure, the question that arose here — the judge’s brief use of the senior law partner in the same law firm retained by plaintiffs — was not monumental and quite likely would have been waived by Cargill in a proper proceeding. Moreover, evidencing his integrity, the judge quickly called a conference and revealed all the rele*1269vant facts. Nonetheless, the judge’s retention of Mr. Petruecelli at the time of the pending lawsuit did create the appearance of lack of impartiality; and section 455(a) required the judge to step aside unless he received proper waivers from the parties. As this did not occur here, and as the case is still at an early stage, I think it would be reasonable for another judge to enter the case. While this imposes some small price on the court and plaintiffs, it is justified as demonstrating the need to observe the Canon.
I would add that, had mandamus requiring a new judge been granted, it would have been open to this court to let stand the former judge’s ruling on Cargill’s dismissal motion. Whether to do this would have been a close question, but, however that issue were resolved, the bringing in of a new judge would have emphasized that Canon 3D procedures are not precatory.
I do not take too seriously my colleagues’ suggestion that this issue may be revisited several years down the road on direct appeal from any final judgment rendered in plaintiffs’ favor. By then there would be overwhelming equities in plaintiffs’ favor not to require them to undergo the expense and burden of retrying the case before a different judge. The Supreme Court has stated “that in determining whether a judgment should be vacated for a violation of § 455(a), it is appropriate to consider the risk of injustice to the parties.” Liljeberg, 486 U.S. at 864, 108 S.Ct. at 2205. Mandamus has been properly recognized as the usual and proper remedy for raising and resolving promptly a question of judicial disqualification such as this. See, e.g., Alexander v. Primerica Holdings, Inc., 10 F.3d 155, 163 (3d Cir.1993); In re United States, 666 F.2d 690, 694 (1st Cir.1981). I would expect that the court’s decision, which has been rendered after the most careful consideration by all members of the panel, will end the matter.
Appendix to Judge Campbell’s Dissent
For the following reasons, I conclude that the judge’s relationship with Mr. Petruecelli required him to recuse himself under 28 U.S.C. § 455(a) absent receipt of the parties’ waiver. That statute provides that a judge “shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” (emphasis supplied). The legislative history indicates that section 455(a) was meant to lessen the traditional “duty to sit,” and, as the Supreme Court has indicated, to require avoidance of even the appearance of partiality. Liljeberg v. Health Serv. Acquisition Corp., 486 U.S. 847, 860-61, 108 S.Ct. 2194, 2202-03, 100 L.Ed.2d 855 (1988). Recusal may be required even in the absence of actual partiality if there is an objectively reasonable basis for doubting the judge’s impartiality. Id.; see Code of Judicial Conduct Canon 2 (1973) (“[A] judge should avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all his activities.”) (emphasis supplied). The Committee on the Codes and Conduct of the Judicial Conference of the United States stated that
where an attorney-client relationship exists between the judge and the lawyer whose law firm appears in the case, the judge should recuse absent remittal.
2 Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Guide to Judiciary Policies and Procedures V-25 (1993).
The proper standard for ascertaining whether a judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned under § 455(a) is whether the charge of lack of impartiality is grounded on facts that would create a reasonable doubt, not in the mind of the judge, or even necessarily that of the litigant, but rather in the mind of the reasonable person. See United States v. Cowden, 545 F.2d 257, 265 (1st Cir.1976), cert. denied, 430 U.S. 909, 97 S.Ct. 1181, 51 L.Ed.2d 585 (1977). Section 455(a) requires a contextual, case-by-case analysis. It does not imply a bright-line rule disqualifying any judge who ever has personal dealings with an attorney whose firm represents litigants before the same judge. The existing case law on the subject of judge-attorney dealings rests on exceedingly fact-specific judgments, with different outcomes in different situations.11
*1270Having said this, certain principles seem clear. A judge would ordinarily be disqualified to sit by § 455(a) if an attorney in the case before him or her were, at the same time, actively representing the judge in a personal matter. See 13A Charles Wright, Arthur Miller & Edward Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 3549 at 614 (1984); cf. Potashnick, 609 F.2d at 1110-12; Texaco, 354 F.2d at 657. And while the situation is more attenuated where the judge is being personally represented not by the same attorney but by someone else in the attorney’s firm, the latter situation is at least cause for concern, as there can be no doubt that, in many factual situations, such overlap can create the appearance of partiality calling for withdrawal under § 455(a). The members of the Judicial Conference Committee advising judges as to the proper interpretation of the Code of Conduct have said as much. See 2 Guide to Judiciary Policies and Procedures, supra, at V-25.
Weighing all the factors in the present case — in which I entertain no doubt whatsoever as to the judge’s personal integrity — I nonetheless believe that a reasonable person viewing all the circumstances might have questioned the impartiality of the judge. The judge’s ruling to the contrary was, I believe, an abuse of discretion. See In re United States, 666 F.2d 690, 697 (1st Cir. 1981) (a federal judge’s decision on whether to recuse himself or herself is committed to that judge’s sound discretion).
The judge received personal legal services from the senior partner of Petruccelli & Martin, a small eight-member firm, close to the time the court ruled upon a dismissal motion that, had it been resolved for Cargill, would have put Petruccelli & Martin’s client out of court. The problem is not simply that by personally retaining Mr. Petruccelli, the judge indicated he had high regard for the latter’s professional abilities. Judges may and often do, with propriety, indicate respect for an attorney’s competence. Here, however, by retaining the senior partner of this small firm for personal legal advice while having under advisement a dispositive motion in a case being handled by other members of the firm, the court gave the appearance that he may have had a particular affinity for that firm and perhaps some close and special relationship. Other attorneys in the same ease could reasonably have been offended by what might have appeared, from the outside, to have been a confidential relationship between the judge and Mr. Petruccelli át that particular time. Also, even after the ending of the judge’s own attorney-client relationship, an outside observer might wonder if, in some manner, consciously or unconsciously, the judge’s appreciation for a job well done by plaintiffs law firm might possibly affect his handling of the pending case.
The judge’s brief attorney-client relationship with Mr. Petruccelli ended, it is true, before the judge’s decision in the case against Cargill. The judge, however, had worked on Cargill’s motion during the period of that relationship. Moreover, the relationship ended only ten days before the decision — a period too short to insulate the two events from one another. Any appearance of partiality that existed prior to the time the representation ceased cannot be meaningfully separated from the court’s decision of January 19.
It is important to emphasize that 28 U.S.C. § 455(a) is concerned with the appearance of impartiality. Liljeberg, 486 U.S. at 860-61, 108 S.Ct. at 2202-03. Disqualification for actual personal bias or prejudice is separately covered by § 455(b)(1). The judge seems *1271to have overlooked the appearance aspect of the statute when he emphasized at the January 12 conference his moral certainty that his handling of the case would not be affected by the relationship with Mr. Petruceelli. The question was not just whether he was biased or prejudiced, but whether his impartiality might reasonably be questioned, a related but different matter.12 According to the House Report accompanying amendments to § 455,
Subsection (a) of the amended section 455 contains the general, or catch-all, [of Canon 3C] that a judge shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which ‘his impartiality’ might reasonably be questioned. This sets up an objective standard, rather than the subjective standard set forth in the existing statute_ This general standard is designed to promote public confidence in the impartiality of the judicial process by saying, in effect, if there is a reasonable factual basis for doubting the judge’s impartiality, he should disqualify himself and let another judge preside over the ease. The language also has the effect of removing the so-called ‘duty to sit’ which has become a gloss on the existing statute....
H.Rep. No. 93-1453, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. (1974), reprinted in 1974 U.S.C.C.A.N. 6351, 6354-6355.
To be sure, the drafters of the statute were also concerned, as are my colleagues here, that the statute not be used by litigants for purely strategic purposes. The House Report cautions that the new test should not be used by judges to avoid sitting in difficult or controversial cases. Disqualification for lack of impartiality must always have “a reasonable basis.” Id (emphasis in original).
Yet the question at issue is, objectively, whether the circumstances reasonably gave rise to a question of the judge’s impartiality. If so, the judge shall disqualify himself. An express purpose of the 1974 rewrite of § 455 was to abandon the subjective standard of the older statute, which had depended largely on the judge’s personal view of whether he or she could behave impartially. Unfortunately, the circumstances here created a situation where a reasonable observer could entertain doubts as to the judge’s impartiality. The judge himself obviously had concerns about the appearance of what had happened, leading him to call the conference of January 12 for the purpose of disclosing what had transpired.
That a question of the judge’s impartiality under § 455(a) existed does not mean that the judge committed a serious impropriety. The judge explained that he did not immediately focus on the fact that Mr. Petruccelli’s firm, partners and associates were involved in the case pending before him. Once aware, the judge commendably disclosed the relationship. This action speaks loudly as to the judge’s personal integrity. The fact remains, however, that a reasonable observer could objectively question the judge’s impartiality in the particular circumstances. The judge was, therefore, required to remove himself unless he had received the parties’ waiver.

. See In re Placid Oil Co., 802 F.2d 783 (5th Cir.1986); Potashnick v. Port City Constr. Co., *1270609 F.2d 1101 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 820, 101 S.Ct. 78, 66 L.Ed.2d 22 (1980); Texaco v. Chandler, 354 F.2d 655 (10th Cir.1965), cert. denied, 383 U.S. 936, 86 S.Ct. 1066, 15 L.Ed.2d 853 (1966); Rapp v. Van Dusen, 350 F.2d 806 (3d Cir.1965); In re Snowshoe Co., 137 B.R. 619 (D.W.Va.1991), aff'd mem., 953 F.2d 639 (4th Cir.1992); Carbana v. Cruz, 595 F.Supp. 585 (D.P.R.1984), aff’d mem., 767 F.2d 905 (1st Cir.1985); Miller Indus., Inc. v. Caterpillar Tractor Co., 516 F.Supp. 84 (D.Ala.1980); Smith v. Sikorsky Aircraft, 420 F.Supp. 661 (C.D.Cal.1976). See also Varela v. Jones, 746 F.2d 1413 (10th Cir.1984); S.J. Groves & Sons Co. v. I.B.T., 581 F.2d 1241 (7th Cir.1978); United States v. Equifax, Inc., 557 F.2d 456 (5th Cir.1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1035, 98 S.Ct. 768, 54 L.Ed.2d 782 (1978); In re Georgetown Park Apt., 143 B.R. 557 (9th Cir. BAP 1992). Cf. In re Allied-Signal, Inc., 891 F.2d 974 (1st Cir.1989).

. Section 455 was completely rewritten by Congress in 1974 so as to conform with the then-new Code of Judicial Conduct which the Judicial Conference of the United States had adopted in 1973 as being applicable to all federal judges. Section 455 was amended so as nearly to duplicate the Code’s Canon 3C, with the intention that federal judges “would no longer be subject to dual [i.e.j Code and statutory standards governing their qualification to sit in a particular proceeding.” H.Rep. No. 93-1453, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. (1974), reprinted in 1974 U.S.C.C.A.N. 6351, 6353. The Code of Judicial Conduct was drafted under sponsorship of the American Bar Association by a committee chaired by former California Chief Justice Roger J. Traynor. The other committee members included Justice Potter Stewart of the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Irving R. Kaufman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and Judge Edward T. Gignoux of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine.