Kornea v. Miller
- Vargas
- 1:22-cv-04454
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Kornea v. Miller, Judge Vargas denied plaintiffs’ reassignment objection because case assignments create no litigant rights absent recusal concerns.
The plaintiffs and defendants in the case were affected by the ruling that kept the reassignment to Judge Vargas in place; the order did not decide their underlying claims.
What happened
In Kornea v. Miller, the plaintiffs objected to moving the case from Judge Engelmayer to Judge Jeannette A. Vargas. They said they were not given notice or a chance to be heard before the reassignment.
The court explained that its internal assignment rules do not give litigants or their lawyers a right to have a particular judge. Reassignments are common in the district, and the plaintiffs did not raise concerns about Judge Vargas’s impartiality or a conflict of interest.
Judge Vargas denied the plaintiffs’ objection to the reassignment. The order did not decide the underlying claims in the case.
The detailed version
- Kornea v. Miller · No. 1:22-cv-04454
- Vargas
- Jan. 16, 2025
Background
The plaintiffs filed an objection to reassigning the case from Judge Engelmayer to Judge Vargas. They also complained that they had not received notice or an opportunity to be heard before the reassignment.
Court’s Analysis
The court stated that case assignments are governed by the Southern District of New York’s internal Rules for the Division of Business Among District Judges. Those rules expressly do not give litigants or their attorneys rights in a case assignment. The court also cited 28 U.S.C. § 137 and noted that reassigning pending cases to newly inducted judges is common practice. Under Rule 10, the assignment committee transfers an equal share of pending cases to a new judge.
The court explained that, apart from issues involving recusal or disqualification—such as circumstances creating a reasonable question about a judge’s impartiality or a conflict of interest—litigants do not have standing, meaning a legally recognized basis, to object to assignment to a particular judge. The plaintiffs did not raise concerns suggesting that Judge Vargas’s impartiality could reasonably be questioned or that a conflict existed.
Ruling
Judge Vargas denied the plaintiffs’ objection to reassignment. The order addressed the judge assignment only and did not resolve the merits of the plaintiffs’ underlying claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.