Cordero v. The Secretary of Health and Human Services

Background

On January 31, 2025, the Court directed service on the Secretary of Health and Human Services, EmblemHealth, and Maximus Federal Services, and dismissed Richard Cordero’s claims against the remaining federal defendants. Cordero later sought reconsideration, but the Court denied that request.

Cordero then asked to submit the case to a district-court “en banc” court, meaning review by multiple judges rather than the assigned judge. He also sought to restore the dismissed claims and have those defendants served, restore what he described as his permission to proceed without paying filing fees, obtain default judgment, reverse orders extending the served defendants’ time to answer, and reassign the case to another judge.

Court’s analysis

The Court denied the motion. It explained that neither the local rules nor the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provide for en banc review in district courts. It also found that Cordero’s arguments did not justify the extraordinary relief he requested and that he was repeating arguments already rejected in his earlier reconsideration motion.

The Court rejected the request for default judgment because no defendant was in default. The three defendants who had been served had extensions allowing them to respond to the Complaint by July 21, 2025.

The Court clarified that Cordero’s permission to proceed without prepaying filing fees in the district court had not been revoked. The earlier order allowed him to proceed without paying the district-court filing fee, but it did not grant permission to proceed without fees on appeal. The Court also explained that the docket notation stating that his fee-related motion was “terminated” did not mean the motion had been denied; it was terminated because the request had already been granted.

The Court treated Cordero’s request for reassignment as a request for recusal under 28 U.S.C. § 455, the statute governing when a judge must step aside because impartiality might reasonably be questioned. It found that Cordero had not identified evidence showing that recusal was warranted. Disagreement with judicial rulings and routine case-management decisions, the Court said, generally is not enough to establish judicial bias.

Disposition

The Court denied Cordero’s motion and directed the Clerk of Court to terminate ECF Nos. 38 and 41. It also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith and therefore denied permission to proceed without prepaying fees for an appeal.