MEMORANDUM OPINION
Thomas
F. Hogan Senior United States District Judge
Pending
before the Court is Plaintiffs' Motion for
Reconsideration of Court's Order of April 29, 2019 and
Motion to Recuse or Disqualify and Random Reassignment to
Another Jurist of This Court [ECF No. 36] (hereinafter the
“motion for reconsideration”). The motion
requests that the Court (1) vacate its April 29, 2019 order
granting the defendants' motion to transfer this case to
the United States District Court for the Southern District of
New York, (2) recuse itself, and (3) submit this case for
reassignment to another judge. Pls.' Mot. at 3.
The
plaintiffs contend that this relief is warranted on several
grounds. First, the plaintiffs take issue with the fact that
the Court found the defendants' arguments in favor of
transfer more compelling than the plaintiffs' arguments
and they allege that this occurred because defense counsel
“misle[d]” the Court into “fail[ing] to
fully comprehend controlling Supreme Court precedent.”
Pls.' Mot. at 1. The plaintiffs also assert that the
Court “appeared” to “disrespect and
disparage” plaintiff Roy Stewart Moore during the April
29, 2019 hearing by clarifying whether Moore continued to
serve on the Alabama Supreme Court when counsel introduced
Moore to the Court as the “Chief Justice.”
Pls.' Mot. at 2.[1] The plaintiffs further argue that the
Court demonstrated “bias” by ruling against them
at the conclusion of that hearing. Pls.' Mot. at 2. The
plaintiffs grouse that the Court “prejudged” the
plaintiffs' arguments before the hearing, Pls.' Mot.
at 2, and, according to them, “add[ed] insult to
injury” by allegedly “read[ing] from an obviously
pre-prepared and pre-judged ruling, ”[2] Pls.' Reply
Br. at 5-6.
Although
the Court has serious doubts about the merits of each of the
plaintiffs' arguments, it must forego addressing their
shortcomings because it lacks jurisdiction to consider the
motion for reconsideration. For that reason, the
plaintiffs' motion will be denied.
ANALYSIS
It has
long been the rule that-absent certain exceptions that do not
apply here-a court's jurisdiction ends when it
“physically transfers” a case to another
permissible forum under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a). Starnes
v. McGuire, 512 F.2d 918, 924 (D.C. Cir. 1974) (en
banc). “The idea apparently is that sending the case
file to another court-the ‘physical
transfer'-leaves the transferor court with nothing to act
upon.” In re Briscoe, 976 F.2d 1425, 1426
(D.C. Cir. 1992) (per curiam). Accordingly, if the Court
physically transferred this case before the plaintiffs filed
their motion for reconsideration, the Court lacks
jurisdiction to consider the motion. That is exactly what
happened here.
As
already indicated, the Court issued an order on April 29,
2019 granting the defendants' motion to transfer this
case to the United States District Court for the Southern
District of New York pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a)
after considering the parties' legal briefs, oral
arguments, and the entire record in this case. See
Order Granting Mot. to Transfer Apr. 29, 2019 [ECF No. 34].
At that point, the plaintiffs were on notice that the Court
was going to transfer the case. Moreover, in light of the
nearly half-century-old controlling decision in
Starnes, the plaintiffs' counsel was aware that
there would be a period of delay during which the plaintiffs
could appeal the transfer order to the United States Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (the “D.C.
Circuit”). See Starnes, 512 F.2d at 935
(mandating that “physical transfer be delayed for a
period of time after entry of the transfer order, during
which time review may be sought in the transferor
circuit”). Fourteen days passed, however, while the
plaintiffs did nothing. They made no attempt to invoke this
Court's jurisdiction or the D.C. Circuit's
jurisdiction to challenge the transfer order before
jurisdiction was lost.
The
Court's jurisdiction over this case ended on May 13,
2019, when it physically transferred the case file by sending
it via extraction to the United States District Court for the
Southern District of New York. See Case Extraction
Doc. (May 13, 2019) [ECF No. 35]; In re Briscoe, 976
F.2d at 1426 (making clear that “physical
transfer” occurs when the transferor court
“sends” the case file to another court). The
plaintiffs delayed filing their motion for reconsideration
until May 14, 2019-one day after the Court's jurisdiction
ended. As a result, the plaintiffs' own delinquency
caused their motion to be filed too late for the Court to
exercise jurisdiction over it. See Starnes, 512 F.2d
at 924.
CONCLUSION
For all
these reasons, Plaintiffs' Motion for Reconsideration of
Court's Order of April 29, 2019 and Motion to Recuse or
Disqualify and Random Reassignment to Another Jurist of This
Court [ECF No. 36] will be denied. An order consistent with
this Memorandum Opinion will be filed contemporaneously.
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Notes:
[1] The transcript of the hearing speaks
for itself on this point and, notably, plaintiffs'
counsel confirmed the factual accuracy of the Court's
comment that Moore was no longer the Chief Justice.
See Draft Hr'g Tr. 2:1-2:9, Apr. 29, 2019
(responding “correct” when the Court commented
that “Former Chief Judge Moore is no longer Chief Judge
. . . [h]e's now a civilian I take it”). By
admitting that the comment was factually accurate, the
plaintiffs call into question the credibility of their
reliance on histrionics to describe the comment as
“highly offensive” and reflecting “the need
to ‘put [Moore] in his place.'” Pls.'
Reply Br. at 5 [ECF No. 38].
[2] It is well established “that due
process does not include the right to oral argument on a
motion.” Spark v. Catholic Univ. of Am., 510
F.2d 1277, 1280 (D.C. Cir. 1975). The Court therefore could
have ruled on the motion to transfer based solely on the
record in the case, which included the legal briefs the
parties filed that previewed all of their legal arguments.
And the plaintiffs cite no authority for the proposition
that, once a court elects to entertain oral arguments, it is
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