Suppose you find yourself seeking an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to correct error by the district court either before or after trial. If you are successful, the case will typically be remanded to the same judge who committed the error and has now been reversed, perhaps for the second time. Even if the case has not been tried, litigants often wish that it could be reassigned to a new judge who could give the case a fresh look and thereby "avoid the operation of bias or mindset which seems likely to have developed from consideration and decisions of motions to dismiss or motions for summary judgment and the like." Cange v. Stotler & Co.1 The courts of appeal have the ability to require reassignment pursuant to the provisions of 28 U.S.C. §2106. This article examines the circumstances under which such reassignment may in fact be the correct and likely outcome when a case is remanded by the Federal Circuit.
The Federal Circuit does not have a specific rule relating to reassignment after remand and therefore will look to the law of the circuit court in which the district court resides. Research Corp. Technologies. v. Microsoft Corp.2
Law of the Seventh Circuit
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