Texas Court to Delay Transfers of Cases Out of Fifth Circuit

The Northern District of Texas federal trial court will delay the transfer of any civil cases ordered to be sent out of the jurisdiction of the Fifth Circuit.

The new local rule, posted on the US district court’s website on Monday, says that “an order that transfers a case to a district court outside the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is stayed for 21 days,” unless all affected parties agree to the transfer.

The rule will go into effect on Sept. 3 and the court will receive comments on it through Aug. 19, according to the notice.

The Northern District of Texas has come under scrutiny for “judge shopping,” as conservative litigants file lawsuits there with the apparent hope of having the case heard by a friendly court. The court hasn’t adopted a rule against the practice, despite the federal judiciary issuing guidance urging judges to do so.

The new rule comes after the Fifth Circuit has reviewed orders sending civil cases out of its jurisdiction.

The New Orleans-based appeals court reversed a ruling initially sending a challenge to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s credit card late fee cap to the federal trial court in Washington. US District Judge Mark Pittman of the Northern District of Texas blocked the rule from going into effect, but then again ordered the case be heard in DC. The Fifth Circuit has stayed that transfer until Tuesday.

The circuit also considered rehearing en banc a petition from Elon Musk’s SpaceX to have the company’s lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board heard in a South Texas federal court, after a district judge there ordered the case transferred to California. The appeals court ultimately didn’t block the move, but SpaceX has since filed a similar lawsuit in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas.