US Judge in Credit Card Late Fee Rule Case Viewed as No-Nonsense

A Trump-appointed judge in Fort Worth known as a “stickler” for local rules and courtroom decorum isn’t afraid to be at odds at times with other conservative judges and litigants.

Mark Pittman, one of two active judges in his courthouse, has twice tried to send an industry-backed challenge to the Biden administration’s rule capping credit card fees out of his courtroom, questioning its ties to Texas. But he’s been twice thwarted by the conservative appeals court above him.

Pittman has accused the industry groups challenging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule, which include the D.C.-based US Chamber of Commerce, of trying to “pick and choose” a venue like a “continental breakfast.”

His approach to the case appears to be part-and-parcel for the Northern District of Texas judge, who’s known among the local bar for his directness from the bench and emphasis on courtroom decorum.

“He is no-nonsense, and he didn’t like other people to engage in nonsense,” said Chief Justice Bonnie Sudderth of Texas’ Second Court of Appeals, who served with Pittman on the state appellate court before he joined the federal bench.

Pittman has more than 1,600 words worth of rules for attorneys specific to his courtroom, including nearly 500 on courtroom decorum. And he’s known to instruct lawyers in his courtroom to review the codes of professional conduct if he sees their manner as inefficient or unbecoming of the position, lawyers said.

Conservative Voice

Pittman, who didn’t respond to an interview request left with his chambers, received his lifetime appointment to the federal bench in 2019 while in his mid-40s. He spent two years on a Texas state appellate court and two years on a state trial court before that.

Born in Big Spring, Texas, he was described at his US Senate nomination hearing as a sixth generation Texan, who grew up in East Texas, earned his undergraduate degree from Texas A&M and his law degree from the University of Texas School of Law.

Pittman came to the seat with the conservative bona fides typical of Trump nominees to red-state courts. He was a vice president and founding member of the Fort Worth Chapter of the conservative Federalist Society, and he ran for his seats as a state court judge as a Republican.

Early in his career, he clerked for the late Judge Eldon Mahon of the Northern District, a Nixon appointee who served decades on the bench and for whom the district’s Fort Worth courthouse is named. Pittman told the Senate in 2019 that Mahon is “the type of judge I aspire to be.”

Before becoming a judge, Pittman worked as a government lawyer for various federal agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. He also had criminal and civil roles at the US attorney’s office for the Northern District.

His rulings have generally shown him to be conservative.

Pittman has struck down the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness plan and a state law prohibiting 18-to-20-year-olds in Texas from carrying handguns outside the home. And this year, he blocked a federal agency that aims to promote growth in minority-owned business from considering race when deciding eligibility for assistance.

Pittman also denied a request by workers at United Airlines Inc. to block the carrier’s policy placing employees with religious objections to its Covid-19 vaccine mandate on unpaid leave.

‘Be Prepared’

Lawyers in Fort Worth said the judge is known as a straight shooter with low tolerance for procedural or etiquette violations in his courtroom.

“He’s perceived as a stickler for the rules and the law,” said Caroline Harrison, an officer with the Tarrant County Bar Association, which includes Fort Worth. She also described Pittman as well-respected and fair.

Pittman’s rulings frequently cite a 1988 en banc decision by the Northern District of Texas known as Dondi, which set a standard of conduct for Texas lawyers in civil cases.

Lawyers in this area “don’t have to read the Dondi opinion,” Pittman said in a 2015 interview with the local bar association less than a year after becoming a state court judge. “I expect the same thing for myself as I do attorneys: Show up at hearings on time, be prepared, and treat each other with respect.”

Pittman said in one federal case that he was “flabbergasted” by a plaintiff who violated local rules three times when filing suits against an airline, and said they were “highly encouraged” to read the Dondi ruling if they filed again.

In a sexual harassment case against a Texas community college, Pittman ordered lawyers last year to read the Dondi ruling, as well as two other guides for professional conduct for Texas lawyers. He also told them to certify they had done so in affidavits due three days later.

But the order came as an ice storm hit Fort Worth, and lawyers for the college submitted unsworn declarations instead. Pittman fined them each $250, ordered them to refile, and then took them to task in a court order a few months later.

The “targeted audience” for the law permitting unsworn declarations in place of affidavits is prisoners and foreign litigants without access to a notary, Pittman wrote, “not lazy lawyers in glass towers who wish to skirt an explicit court order.”

The New Orleans-based US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed Pittman’s sanctions order after finding he’d abused his discretion. It’s one of several instances of the appeals court overturning his orders reprimanding attorneys as heavy-handed.

Court Scrutiny

Pittman sits on a court that has come under scrutiny as a destination for conservative litigants hoping to “forum-shop,” or the practice of filing in certain courts in hopes of getting—or to be guaranteed—a certain judge.

The district’s assignment structure allows litigants to file in single- or double-judge divisions, effectively allowing them to select who’ll hear their case.

In Fort Worth, Pittman and Judge Reed O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee, are the only two active judges and each are assigned 45% of civil cases filed there, while Senior Judge Terry Means, a George H. W. Bush appointee, is assigned 10%. His division is one of seven in the district, which also encompasses the Amarillo courthouse, where Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, is the only active judge.

As a result, the Northern District has become a magnet for “big-ticket cases” challenging national policies, Fordham Law School professor Pamela Bookman said.

For the judges on the court, “depending on who you are, I guess you see this as a challenge or an opportunity,” she said. “It increases your caseload, it probably increases the number of controversial or high-profile cases before you. Those cases may be challenging, difficult, complicated. You’re under a lot of scrutiny.”

Pittman has acknowledged his court’s heavy caseload. After a Fifth Circuit panel found Pittman “did not act promptly” on a request to block the credit card fee rule and set a 10-day deadline for a decision, he responded that the court “must respectfully disagree with its appellate court colleagues.”

He called the imposed deadline “a usurpation of the Court’s docket-management authority.” And in a footnote in that May order, Pittman noted that he opened and resolved 232 and 307 cases respectively since October 2023, the second most of the 16 judges still hearing cases in the Northern District, after O’Connor.