Manuel L. Real, U.S. district judge of the Central District of California, appears before the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property's legislative hearing on H. Res. 916. The resolution calls for the impeachment of Real for high crimes and misdemeanors. September 21, 2006. Photo by Diego M. Radzinschi/LEGAL TIMES.

The longest-serving federal district judge in modern history, Manuel Real, has died at age 95.

Real, a U.S. district judge for the Central District of California for 50 years, died on Wednesday, court officials reported Friday. Appointed in 1966 by President Lyndon Johnson, Real was known for his colorful antics in court and was frequently reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

“I am sad beyond words at the death of our beloved friend, colleague, mentor and leader,” said Central District of California Chief Judge Virginia Phillips. “Judge Real has been the heart and soul of our district since it was formed in 1966, and his passing leaves an unfillable void for us, his family, the legal world and the larger community. His legacy of public service is an inspiration beyond compare.”

Real was a 1951 graduate of Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. He had served in the U.S. Navy Reserve during World War II from 1943 to 1945. After law school, he was a federal prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of California, later serving as U.S. attorney for that district from 1964 to 1966.

When he was nominated to be a federal judge, the Central District of California had just been created.

In 1970, Real ordered the desegregation of the Pasadena Unified School District.

Real was a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States from 1981 to 1984, and served as chief judge of the Central District of California from 1982 to 1993.

Real, however, developed a reputation for being frequently overturned at the Ninth Circuit. The string of reversals really took hold after Real notoriously feuded with police misconduct litigator Stephen Yagman, whom he fined $250,000 for courtroom behavior during a contentious 1984 defamation trial. Yagman appealed, and the Ninth Circuit reversed Real and ordered another judge to consider the sanction issue. “The fragile appearance of justice has taken a beating,” Ninth Circuit Judge J. Blaine Anderson wrote in In re Yagman. “It is time to conclude the matter as quickly and as painlessly as possible.”

Real though declined to let go of Yagman's case, holding onto it while the outcome of another appeal involving a similar issue was pending. In the other case, the Ninth Circuit again ordered Real removed after he twice refused to follow the court's instruction to dismiss it. After the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Real's personal petition for certiorari, he finally let go of both cases. “I felt very strongly about those cases,” Real told The Recorder in a 1999 judicial profile. “They can sit back and look for something I did wrong and make their calls. That's their job,” he said of the circuit court. “But I'm in the courtroom and I call them like I see them.”

In 2003, Yagman filed a complaint against Real for allegedly taking over a bankruptcy case involving a woman whose loan fraud case the judge was overseeing. Former Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Mary Schroeder initially dismissed the complaint against Real, but later appointed a committee to investigate. By that time, Congress had begun considering whether to initiate impeachment proceedings against Real, who denied wrongdoing. Real said Yagman had a “personal vendetta” against him. The Judicial Council of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ultimately issued a public reprimand of Real.

Among Real's orders reversed by the Ninth Circuit were three decisions in a long-running antitrust class action against the publishers of the Barbri bar review course that led to his removal in a related case in 2016.

Real took senior status on Nov. 4.