Judge Warns of Mischief After 5th Circuit Pushed for CFPB Ruling

A US district judge in Texas strongly defended himself from criticism by the Fifth Circuit that he took too long in managing a court fight over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s credit card late fee rule.

Judge Mark Pittman of the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas on Friday issued a preliminary injunction blocking the rule from going into effect.

In doing so, he dedicated over four pages of his 12-page ruling to addressing how he manages his docket in the Fort Worth courthouse, where he is one of two active district judges.

Pittman, an appointee of President Donald Trump, wrote that he “must respectfully disagree with its appellate court colleagues that it did not act ‘promptly’ or was otherwise dilatory or sluggish in its resolution of the preliminary injunction.”

He noted that the motion for a preliminary injunction was pending for seven days when it reached his docket, as another judge had recused himself from hearing the case, and he ordered expedited briefing on whether the case belonged in Fort Worth two days after receiving the case.

The district judge said that he also had two criminal sentencings before him at that time, on top of 218 open cases in March alone.

Pittman said that he had set a hearing on the preliminary injunction in case he found venue was proper, but canceled it after he ordered the case transferred to the Washington federal trial court.

He said he “welcomes further guidance from the Court of Appeals as to whether a district court must first rule on an injunction motion before it can transfer a case.”

Pittman had ordered the case’s transfer after finding no banks subject to the rule are based in the Northern District of Texas, but a divided panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed that decision.

Pittman also took issue with the Fifth Circuit ordering that he rule on the preliminary injunction within 10 days, saying he “respectfully notes that this seems to be a usurpation of the Court’s docket-management authority, especially considering precedents in the Fifth Circuit’s order.”

He said that he’s required to prioritize incoming criminal cases over civil matters. “If a party in a civil case can manipulate the system in order to have a district court be forced by an appellate court to act in a specific number of days, problems will arise,” Pittman wrote. “District courts are entrusted to manage their own dockets.”

The judge also said he would like more clarity from the Fifth Circuit about when parties can “dictate the court’s term and timeline,” adding that he’s “concerned that this case opens the door for ‘mischief’ wherein plaintiffs can come up with creative reasons for demanding prompt preliminary-injunction rulings under a dictated timeline.”

“The Court accepts the rulings of Fifth Circuit in this case without passion or prejudice and will apply its guidance to the utmost of its ability,” Pittman wrote. “However, this Court would be remiss it did not point out the potential landmines the court’s ruling could pose for a trial judge’s day-to-day docket-management discretion, especially in a busy division.”

The case is US Chamber of Commerce v. CFPB, N.D. Tex., No. 4:24-cv-00213, 5/10/24