IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Magistrate Judge Stephen G. Larson, the resident magistrate judge in the Eastern Division, shall be included in the pool of judicial officers available for random selection as the assigned judge for all civil cases except death penalty habeas petitions, bankruptcy appeals, and cases referred to a magistrate judge for a Report and Recommendation.
Excluding the cases outlined above, Magistrate Judge Larson shall be randomly assigned one-sixth (1/6) of the civil cases assigned to the Eastern Division each month. All cases assigned to Magistrate Judge Larson shall be drawn from cases that would otherwise be assigned to District Judge Robert Timlin. For those cases randomly assigned, Magistrate Judge Larson shall be responsible for all case management and scheduling activities, and shall hear and decide all non-dispositive pretrial and discovery matters.
When a case is randomly assigned to Magistrate Judge Larson, the Clerk shall provide a Notice and Consent Form to the filing party who shall be directed to serve the Notice and Consent From on each party served in the action. The Notice shall instruct all counsel to return the Consent Form, indicating whether or not counsel and their client(s) consent to the assignment to Magistrate Judge Larson, within five (5) days of the filing of any dispositive motion or application for temporary or permanent injunctive relief, or five (5) days before the Final Pre-Trial Conference, whichever occurs earlier. The Consent Form shall expressly advise the parties that they are free to withhold consent without adverse substantive consequences.
If all parties consent, the case shall remain assigned to Magistrate Judge Larson for all purposes, including jury and non-jury trials and the entry of final judgment, pursuant to the provisions of 28 U.S.C. §636(c) and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 73(b). If any party fails to consent within the time limits set forth above, the case shall be reassigned to Judge Timlin (to whom the case would have been assigned initially).
If discovery motions are filed after the case has been reassigned to Judge Timlin, Judge Timlin may refer the discovery motions to Magistrate Judge Larson.
This pilot project shall be effective for one year commencing on January 1, 2004. |