Ickes v. University of California College of the Law
- Edward Chen
- 3:25-cv-05859
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 12
In Tenor D. Ickes v. University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, Judge Chen denied motions to recuse and transfer the case from San Francisco to Oakland.
Tenor D. Ickes’s requests to remove Judge Chen from the case and transfer the case from the San Francisco Division to the Oakland Division were denied; the lawsuit against the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco was not otherwise resolved by this order.
What happened
Tenor D. Ickes sued the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco after being permanently disqualified as a student. After the court denied his requests for emergency and preliminary relief, he asked Judge Chen to step aside and sought transfer of the case from the San Francisco Division to the Oakland Division.
Ickes argued that Judge Chen was biased because of rulings about his disability-related claims, the courthouse’s proximity to the law school, the hiring of law students as externs, participation in a panel sponsored by the law school’s journal, and positive comments about the school. He also argued that the law school’s location and relationships with San Francisco judges made a fair trial there impossible.
Judge Edward Chen denied both motions. He concluded that the cited facts did not provide a legally sufficient basis to question his impartiality and that the interests of justice did not warrant transferring the case to Oakland.
The detailed version
- Ickes v. University of California College of the Law · No. 3:25-cv-05859
- Edward Chen
- Dec. 7, 2025
Background
Tenor D. Ickes filed this lawsuit after he was permanently disqualified as a student at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco. The court previously denied his motion for emergency relief and later denied his motion for a preliminary injunction, stating that he was not likely to succeed on the merits and had not raised serious questions on the merits. Ickes then filed a motion to recuse Judge Chen and a motion to transfer the case from the San Francisco Division to the Oakland Division. The court resolved both motions without oral argument and vacated the scheduled hearing.
Motion to Recuse
Ickes invoked 28 U.S.C. §§ 144 and 455. Section 144 allows recusal when a party files a timely and legally sufficient affidavit alleging personal bias or prejudice. Section 455 requires a judge to step aside when the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned, including because of personal bias or prejudice concerning a party. The court explained that the substantive standard under both statutes is whether a reasonable, well-informed person knowing all the facts would question the judge’s impartiality. Judicial rulings, opinions, and statements made during litigation generally are not grounds for recusal unless they stem from an outside source.
Ickes argued that Judge Chen had favored UC Law because the court accepted what Ickes called the school’s “misdirection” about his disability-related claims, the courthouse was near UC Law, Judge Chen had hired UC Law students as externs, Judge Chen participated in a panel sponsored by the UC Law Journal, and Judge Chen described UC Law as one of the better or best law schools in the country.
The court found these facts legally insufficient to support recusal. It stated that the disagreement about whether accommodation was part of Ickes’s claims arose from the litigation itself, not from an outside source. The court also stated that geographic proximity between the courthouse and the school did not establish bias. Hiring individual students as externs did not mean that Judge Chen had hired or favored UC Law, and the court noted that he did not hire externs exclusively from UC Law. The court further found that the panel concerned the Judicial Internship Opportunity Program, which the court determined was operated by the American Bar Association rather than UC Law. Finally, the court found that Judge Chen’s comments about UC Law were made during the litigation and, in context, referred positively to Ickes’s admission to the school rather than showing favoritism toward it.
The court raised serious questions about whether Ickes’s recusal request was timely because some of the facts could have been known earlier. It did not decide that issue, however. Instead, it assumed the motion was timely and denied it because the alleged facts did not legally support questioning the judge’s impartiality.
Motion for Intradistrict Transfer
Ickes sought to move the case from the San Francisco Division to the Oakland Division. He argued that he could not receive a fair trial in San Francisco because of UC Law’s location and its alleged ties to federal judges there. The court considered the federal transfer statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), and the local rule concerning transfers between divisions within the district.
The court denied the transfer motion. It found that the interests of justice did not warrant moving the case and stated that the circumstances were not comparable to cases involving pervasive, prejudicial publicity. The court also found no bias or appearance of partiality by Judge Chen or other federal judges in San Francisco.
Disposition
The court denied both the motion to recuse and the motion for intradistrict transfer. The order disposed of Docket Nos. 47 and 50.
Read the full 12-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.