Month Passes Since Section 301 Cases Stayed Without Assignment
Importers filed a daily average of 1.25 new Section 301 cases in the 20 business days since Chief Judge Mark Barnett of the U.S. Court of International Trade signed his April 28 administrative order automatically staying any new complaints without…
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assigning them to the three-judge panel he shares with Judges Claire Kelly and Jennifer Choe-Groves (see 2104290002). Court records show that’s slightly fewer than the 1.45 daily average of cases filed in the 20 days before Barnett’s order, all of which were also stayed but assigned to the panel. There’s no evidence suggesting Barnett’s order is reducing the influx of new Section 301 challenges, nor was that his intent. His rationale, he told an April 26 status conference, was his worry that a future case would create a "conflict" forcing the recusal of one or more of the judges. There’s word that the court took elaborate precautions to avoid possible conflicts, contributing to the five-month delay between the Sept. 10 filing of the first complaint and the Feb. 5 order assigning the massive litigation to the three-judge panel (see 2102050038). Judges’ stock ownership in companies with cases coming before them is a common worry. Lawyers filing complaints before the court need to submit the proper disclosure forms to help the chief judge weed out possible conflicts before assigning cases.