WASHINGTON — Federal courts moved Tuesday to make it harder to bring lawsuits before judges seen as friendly to a particular position, a practice known as judge shopping that gained national attention in a major case against abortion drugs.
The new policy covers civil lawsuits that would affect an entire state or country. It would require a judge to be randomly assigned, even in areas where locally filed cases have been brought before a single judge.
Most of the nation’s 94 federal district courts already assign cases randomly, but some plans assign cases to judges in the smaller division where the case is filed. In single-judge divisions, often in rural areas, this means that private or public attorneys can essentially choose which judge will hear the case.
The practice has raised concerns among senators and the Biden administration, and its use in patent cases was highlighted by Chief Justice John Roberts in his 2021 report on the federal judiciary.
Interest groups of all kinds have long tried to file lawsuits with judges they see as friendly to their cause. But the practice gained more attention after an unprecedented ruling that halted the approval of abortion drugs. That case was filed in Amarillo, Texas, where it was almost certain to go before U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, a former attorney for a religious freedom legal group with a long history that promotes conservative causes.
The Supreme Court has stayed its ruling on abortion drugs and will hear arguments on it later this month.
The new policy announced by the U.S. Judicial Conference after its biennial meeting would not apply to cases seeking solely local action. It was not passed in response to a particular case, but rather based on a “plethora of national and statewide orders,” said Judge Jeff Sutton, chief judge of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals and chairman of the executive committee of the Judicial Conference.
“We get the idea of having local cases resolved locally, but if a case is a declaratory judgment or a national injunction, obviously the stakes of the case go beyond that small town,” he said.
