Judges Don't Always Act As A Rubber Stamp
The ways of the courts are not always exactly like you expected them to be.
In some legal practice situations, litigants and their attorneys can pretty much guarantee that a court will grant a request. For instance, if all parties consent to a given application, and there is no prejudice to any other party, courts will usually approve a request in the interests of justice. However, judges do not always act like a rubber stamp and approve requests even if there is no opposition. Attorneys should not rely on a judge granting an application, even if nobody opposes the request, since courts might still have a variety of reasons for refusing to grant a given motion.
Earlier in my career, I litigated a case in which an adversary filed a motion against my client, that, if granted, would have somewhat prejudiced my client. I told my client about the motion, but my client instructed me not to oppose the motion because my client did not want to pay the attorneys’ fees associated with opposing the motion and because the motion would not greatly prejudice my client. The court took months to render a decision, which I thought was weird since the court usually acted quickly and because no one filed opposition papers.
Eventually, the court issued a multipage-decision denying the motion. The court went into great detail about why it did not have the power to grant the motion in question. In order to reach this decision, the court parsed out language in several documents against very discrete lines of caselaw I had never seen before. Since the motion had not been granted, my adversary had to expend considerable resources to accomplish what they wanted to achieve.
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When I told my client about the positive outcome, the client was ecstatic. The client thanked me for all of my work on the case, and I think my client might have credited me for this positive result even though I did literally nothing to achieve this outcome. Perhaps if I had filed opposition papers, I would have confused the issues, and it would have been less likely that my client would have achieved a good result.
Courts may deviate from expectations when it comes to case management issues as well. In a jurisdiction in which I practice, litigants are given a particular period for discovery, but this can be extended by motion. If all of the parties consent, a discovery extension is almost always granted. Indeed, it is not uncommon for courts to grant several extensions of the discovery deadline in this jurisdiction, and usually, courts will warn the parties when they are approaching a point at which the court will not extend discovery any further.
I once had a case in this jurisdiction in which the parties had not yet asked the court for a discovery period extension. With the consent of all parties, a motion to extend was filed so that everyone could complete expert discovery and a few other outstanding matters before discovery ended. To everyone’s surprise, the court refused to grant a discovery extension! I am not sure why the court did not grant an extension like other courts in that jurisdiction would nearly 100% of the time. Perhaps there was some pressure to clear dockets and expedite cases. In any event, all of the lawyers had to scramble to complete outstanding discovery to prepare the case for the summary judgment stage and beyond. As I recall, the refusal to grant a discovery extension did lead to an earlier resolution of the matter, which is a positive outcome.
In any event, attorneys who practice for a while in a jurisdiction may believe they can predict when a court will act a certain way based on their experience and the circumstances of a case. However, courts often will not act as a rubber stamp, and attorneys should not rely on a court to approve a request before it has been decided upon.
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Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at [email protected].
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