Court Tries to Gracefully Take Judge Real Off Case

Skirting a direct confrontation with the chief federal judge in Los Angeles, an appeals court Wednesday ordered a court clerk to remove chief U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real from a controversial civil case in which he had fined a lawyer $250,000.

The ruling, effectively sidestepping Real’s challenge to the power of the appellate courts, gives the clerk of the court’s Central District, Leonard Brosnan, seven days to randomly select another judge to take over a case that Real, in the name of judicial independence, has refused to relinquish.

In a seven-month standoff with the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Real has not complied with an earlier demand from the appellate court to allow another judge to decide whether a $250,000 sanction should be imposed against Los Angeles attorney Stephen Yagman.

The new order does not address Yagman’s demand that Real be held in contempt for ignoring the earlier order but simply directs the ruling to the court clerk instead.

“What happens is the clerk is now in between the chief judge of the district court and the circuit court,” Real’s attorney, Donald C. Smaltz, said Wednesday.

Ironically, while court observers said the new ruling is a graceful attempt to avoid a showdown with the powerful chief judge, it also, according to one source, puts Real “in the hot seat” by requiring one of the court’s employees to carry out the ruling.

The standoff began last August, when a three-member panel of the appellate court rebuked Real for “abuse of discretion” in imposing the $250,000 fine on Yagman for alleged courtroom misconduct in a $20-million defamation suit stemming from the death of former California State University, Long Beach, football player Ron Settles in a Signal Hill jail.

Yagman took the issue to the news media, alleging that Real had “mental disorders” and was “held in the lowest regard” by the legal community--an assertion that local Bar groups immediately disavowed.

In the resulting fracas, the 9th Circuit upheld Real’s dismissal of Yagman’s suit but reversed the $250,000 fine, ruling that while Real had demonstrated no bias or prejudice during the trial, the issue of the fine should be re-heard by another judge in order to preserve “the fragile appearance of justice.”

Criminal Case

Real delayed any action on the court’s order pending the outcome of an appeal that he had made to the U.S. Supreme Court in a separate criminal case in which the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had ordered his removal.

The high court late last year declined to review the case, effectively letting the appellate court’s removal order stand. But Real, instead of reassigning the Yagman case, ordered lawyers in the case to file briefs on the issue of the judge’s authority to hear the case.

“There is no doubt as to our authority to order a case reassigned,” Judges J. Blaine Anderson, Harry Pregerson and Charles E. Wiggins wrote.

“In the scheme of the federal judicial system, the district court is required to follow and implement our decisions, just as we are oath- and duty-bound to follow the decisions and mandates of the United States Supreme Court.”

Quoting from a Supreme Court decision on the authority of the nation’s appeals courts, the judges added, “Unless we wish anarchy to prevail within the federal judicial system, a precedent of this court must be followed by the lower federal courts, no matter how misguided the judges of those courts may think it to be.”

No Decision

Smaltz, Real’s attorney, said there has been no decision made about how to respond to the appellate court’s order, although he said an appeal to the Supreme Court is possible.

“We’re talking about the independence of the trial bench,” Smaltz said. “There’s a delicate balance between the trial courts and the appellate courts. The Supreme Court has recognized on more than one occasion that (the appellate system) gives the higher court a power of review. It doesn’t give the appellate court the power of intervention.”

Smaltz said he “could not speculate” about whether Real would order Brosnan not to comply with the order.

Technically, Brosnan, who could not be reached for comment, is answerable to a majority of the 22 judges who sit on the Central District bench in Los Angeles.

But Yagman said it is the chief judge who exercises controlling authority over court employees.

‘Difficult Position’

“I don’t think Mr. Brosnan is going to obey that order unless Judge Real gives him permission to do that,” Yagman said. “He’s going to be in an awfully difficult position.”

Yagman said the appellate court’s ruling was “obviously intended to avoid a confrontation between the 9th Circuit and Judge Real. I think they perceived that Judge Real would not follow the order of the 9th Circuit and sought to implement their order in a different way.”