“PacifiCorp: Disqualification Motion Against Oregon Appeals Court Judge Based on ‘Suspicion,’ ‘Innuendo’” —

• “An Oregon Court of Appeals judge who once represented PacifiCorp, the defendant in dozens of lawsuits brought by wildfire victims, should not be disqualified because she only handled two unrelated legal matters for the utility, according to PacifiCorp.”
• “This week, PacifiCorp filed a response to a motion to disqualify Judge Anna Joyce, who wrote an April 8 ruling overturning a 2023 verdict in the first of about 20 trials as part of a class action filed by the victims of four wildfires in Oregon in 2020. The ruling effectively wiped out more than $1 billion in verdicts against PacifiCorp.”
• “Joyce represented PacifiCorp while at Portland, Oregon’s Markowitz Herbold, where she was a managing shareholder until 2022, when she joined the bench. The firm has served as PacifiCorp’s counsel in several of the wildfire trials.”
• “But in Tuesday’s response, PacifiCorp insisted its representation made up less than 3.6% of Joyce’s billable work while at Markowitz Herbold and was limited to two legal matters unrelated to wildfire litigation.”
• “‘Any motion to disqualify should be grounded in due diligence and a strictly accurate recitation of the facts—not on suspicion, innuendo or purposeful shading of the truth to create an unjustified appearance of impropriety,’ PacifiCorp attorney Per Ramfjord, of Portland’s Stoel Rives, wrote.”
• “‘The work she previously performed for PacifiCorp was minimal, confined to entirely unrelated matters that never touched on wildfires, and occurred years before she participated in the panel issuing the unanimous decision in this case. Put simply, any connection between PacifiCorp and Judge Joyce is too unrelated, too limited, and too remote in time to raise any legitimate concerns that she issued the decision in this case on any basis other than the merits.’”
• “Markowitz Herbold did not begin handling PacifiCorp’s wildfire litigation until September 2025, he added. And Joyce, during her more than six years at the firm, was focused on regulatory and appellate matters.”
• “In a declaration, Markowitz Herbold partner Dallas DeLuca, who is co-chairman of the energy practice group with Jeff Lovinger, both in Portland, confirmed Joyce’s role in regulatory matters and her billing records. He also wrote that Joyce never headed the energy practice group.”
• “PacifiCorp, in an emailed statement to Law.com, reiterated that Joyce was one of three judges on a panel in the April 8 opinion, which reversed the verdict in James v. PacifiCorp after concluding that Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Steffan Alexander gave an improper jury instruction about class action trials that prejudiced Berkshire Hathaway-owned PacifiCorp. The instruction said, ‘You may assume that the evidence at the trial applies to all class members.’”
• “‘Plaintiffs’ counsel is effectively attempting to judge shop and wrongly disparaging a distinguished public servant—only once faced with an unfavorable outcome,’ according to a statement from PacifiCorp.”
• “‘Judge Joyce has never represented PacifiCorp in wildfire litigation. Her prior work for the company was limited to unrelated regulatory matters over five years ago and has no bearing on this case or Judge Joyce’s ability to be fair and impartial. Plaintiffs’ counsel would better serve their clients by advancing a constructive path towards resolution, joining the nearly 90% of plaintiffs not associated with the Beachie Creek/Santiam fire who have already resolved their cases. Instead, plaintiffs’ attorneys continue to jeopardize their clients’ claims in a misguided attempt to collect hundreds of millions of dollars for their law firms by seeking to certify a single class for four separate wildfires and insisting on a deeply flawed jury instruction.’”
• “The May 26 motion, filed by Edelson’s Todd Logan, asked the Oregon Court of Appeal to disqualify Joyce from all the wildfire appeals going forward. In addition to James v. PacifiCorp, there are nine additional cases on appeal that were held in abeyance. More than 1,000 other wildfire survivors have damages trials scheduled until 2028.”
• “On May 13, lawyers for the wildfire victims petitioned the Oregon Supreme Court to overturn the appeals court decision that Joyce wrote.”
• “Their disqualification motion follows a May 4 article by the Oregon Journalism Project revealing that Joyce had a conflict of interest and should have recused herself due to her representation of PacifiCorp while working at Markowitz Herbold.”
• “‘If you’re at a firm and become a judge, you cannot work on a matter the firm was handling while you were there, even if you did not work on the matter while at the firm,’ New York University School of Law’s Stephen Gillers, who specializes in judicial ethics, told Law.com. ‘It doesn’t matter that she worked on regulatory matters; she was at the firm.’”
  “But the timing of the disqualification motion doesn’t help the wildfire plaintiffs, he said. ‘That might be a problem for the plaintiffs because they have a duty to investigate the possibility of recusal,’ he said. ‘You can’t sit back and wait until the case turns out and then move to recuse.’”
• “‘To allow a motion to disqualify under these circumstances—in which, after an adverse decision, publicly available information is twisted to create a false impression of bias in favor of a party—would not only be contrary to the law, but would encourage litigants to press for disqualification whenever they no longer want a judge to participate in a case due to adverse rulings,’ he wrote. ‘Far from instilling trust in the law as plaintiffs suggest, it would only undermine public confidence in the judiciary.’”

David Kluft asks: “Should the judge be recused if he questions my lawyer’s mental health?” —

• “A FL lawyer in a divorce matter informed the court of her unavailability during a certain date range. The judge noticed that the lawyer’s assertions of unavailability contradicted statements she had made in other cases about her availability, so he ordered her to provide a list of all her active cases in the court. The lawyer responded that she could not do so because she was about to go on medical leave and just fired her assistant, but she promised that she ‘will provide a list as soon as physically and mentally possible.’ “
• “The lawyer’s client meanwhile filed motion to recuse the judge on the grounds the judge was bias against his lawyer. In denying the motion, the judge seized on the lawyer’s fleeting reference to her ‘mental’ health, stated he was troubled by the lack of a ‘timeline for when she will be mentally capable of reviewing her own cases,’ questioned her ‘mental fitness’ and ‘ability to practice,’ and stated he could not ‘understand what has come across as desperation to address a mental health issue.’ The judge further found that the counsel appeared to have ‘tailored’ her notices of unavailability to suit the needs of the cases. A second motion to recuse was also denied.”
• “On appeal, the appellate court noted that a trial judge’s comments of ‘mere frustration, admonishment or annoyance with counsel’s mannerisms, tactics, or abilities’ do not rise to the level of recusal. However, here the ‘findings questioning counsel’s mental health and fitness to practice, credibility, and candor establish actual bias.’ The judge was disqualified.”
• Decision: here.

“No Disclosure or Recusal Required When a Judge’s Friend’s Subordinates Appear Before Them: Judicial Ethics Opinion 25-190” —

• “Digest: A judge need not disqualify nor disclose a close personal relationship with a supervising attorney when the attorney’s subordinates appear before the judge, provided the judge concludes he/she can be fair and impartial.”
• “Rules: Judiciary Law § 14; 22 NYCRR 100.2; 100.2(A); 100.2(B); 100.3(E)(1); Opinions 25-131; 15-45; 14-90; 12-85(B); 11-125.”
• “Opinion: The inquiring judge maintains a close personal friendship with a particular attorney and has determined that he/she must disqualify, subject to remittal, if the friend were to appear before the judge (see Opinion 11-125). The friend is now the chief attorney of an agency’s law department and thus supervises many staff attorneys who will appear before the judge. The judge asks if disclosure or disqualification is required in matters where staff attorneys under the friend’s chain of command appear.”
• “A judge must always avoid even the appearance of impropriety (see 22 NYCRR 100.2) and must always act in a manner that promotes the public’s confidence in the judiciary’s integrity and impartiality (see 22 NYCRR 100.2[A]). Further, a judge must not allow family, social, political or other relationships to influence the judge’s judicial conduct or judgment (see 22 NYCRR 100.2[B]). A judge must disqualify in cases where the judge’s impartiality ‘might reasonably be questioned’ (22 NYCRR 100.3[E][1]) and as required by rule or law (see generally id.; Judiciary Law § 14).”
• “A judge’s obligation to disqualify depends upon the judge’s own relationship with the attorney, party, or witness at issue (see Opinion 25-131, citing Opinion 11-125 [discussing three categories of relationships]). Thus, we have advised that a judge’s ‘social relationship with the deputy director of a legal services organization does not, alone, require disqualification or disclosure when the deputy director’s subordinates appear before the judge’ (Opinion 14-90; see Opinions 15-45 [public law office]; 12-85[B] [law firm]). We explained that a ‘judge’s impartiality cannot reasonably be questioned merely because an attorney appearing before the judge reports to an individual who is the judge’s long-time, close personal friend, where there is no indication … that the judge has any direct relationship – social, professional, or otherwise – with those attorneys’ (Opinion 15-45 [citation and internal quotation marks omitted]).”
• “Accordingly, the inquiring judge does not have an ethical obligation to disqualify or disclose a close personal relationship with a supervising attorney when the attorney’s subordinates appear before the judge, provided the judge concludes he/she can be fair and impartial.”