Over the last two weeks, Chief Judge Connolly issued orders in about 15 different groups of cases offering the choice between consenting to magistrate judges Burke (in some cases) or Fallon (in other cases), or being referred to a visiting judge:
ORAL ORDER: It is HEREBY ORDERED that on or before June 13, 2023, the parties shall either (1) submit to the Clerk of Court an executed Form AO 85 Notice, Consent, and Reference of a Civil Action to a Magistrate Judge, indicating their consent to have a United States Magistrate Judge conduct all proceedings in this case including trial, the entry of final judgment, and post-trial proceedings; or (2) file a joint letter indicating that all the parties do not consent to a referral of this action to a Magistrate Judge. The letter should not indicate which party or parties did not consent. If all the parties consent, the case will be referred to Magistrate Judge Fallon. Because of the Court's caseload, if the parties do not consent, the Court intends to assign the case to a visiting judge from another district. Ordered by Judge Colm F. Connolly on 6/6/2023.
Dental Monitoring v. Get-Grin Inc., C.A. No. 22-647 (D. Del. Jun. 6, 2023).
I also heard yesterday that Judge Andrews did the same in at least one of his cases recently, although he did it verbally. Prior to this, I hadn't seen any of these referrals since January.
I'm glad the Court is still doing it this way. Everyone I have heard from agrees that this procedure is a great improvement on simply referring cases straight to a visiting judge. And, as we saw last year, it seems like plenty of parties elect to consent (although it's nice to have the choice either way).
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