Delaware Automates Judge Assignments After Musk Criticism (1)

Delaware Chancery Court on Monday announced plans for automating case assignments to its judges and magistrates, addressing a major complaint some companies have had with the premier US business court.

The move follows criticism from billionaire Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk and other corporate leaders, who’ve been pressuring state leaders to address what they perceive is a bias from certain judges against controlling stockholders and technology companies. The court’s change will come with new features in its electronic filing system that take effect Sept. 15.

Included in the revised procedure is a new definition of “related cases,” under which judges may see the same corporate defendants they’ve previously encountered if a new case involves the “same factual predicate or transaction” as the prior litigation, but such assignments won’t be automatic, according to a statement.

The previous case assignment system intended to promote efficiency while addressing the court’s overwhelming caseload. Now, “the court still faces a workload crisis, but we are deploying new solutions to address it,” said the court’s chief judge, Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick.

Delaware’s chancery bench is recognized for its business law expertise, with seven judges and five magistrates who hear cases quickly without juries. However, Gov. Matt Meyer (D) said earlier this year that he’s heard many complaints from companies about the system in which subsequent cases involving a specific litigant tended to be assigned to the same judge for efficiency.

“They know in some cases the judge has ruled against them in the past, and so they feel like the result of the case is a foregone conclusion,” Meyer said in a February interview.

The new features mark “a step toward” automating case assignments under updated rules, according to the statement. Those updates include assigning more cases on a pre-established rotation, dividing cases into different categories, and balancing the judges’ workloads through case reassignments. “The intent of these changes is to simplify the rules of assignment and ensure that judicial officers receive an even number of new civil actions within the broader case types,” according to the statement.

Critics

Books-and-records demands and advancement actions will continue to be assigned to the court’s magistrate judges. Certain types of contract disputes also will continue to go to the Delaware Superior Court’s Complex Commercial Litigation Division.

Delaware lawmakers rewrote its corporate statutes in the last couple years in response to unpopular Chancery Court rulings, but those amendments haven’t been enough for some of its staunchest critics.

The venture capital firm co-founded by Meta Platforms Inc. director Marc Andreessen cited “an unprecedented level of subjectivity” from the Chancery Court in its July 9 decision to leave Delaware for Nevada.

McCormick in particular has been subjected to personal attacks from Musk, among others. He’s referred to her as “the activist who is cosplaying as a judge in a Halloween costume,” along with other disparaging remarks, after she twice ruled against his massive Tesla pay package.

She also refused to let Musk drop his $44 billion bid to buy the social media platform then known as Twitter in 2022.

An incorrect AI summary previously at the top of this story was removed.