Direct Assignment of Civil Cases to Magistrate Judges

Direct Assignment of Civil Cases to Magistrate Judges

On December 1, 2024, the Central District of California launched the Opt-Out Civil Consent to Magistrate Judges Program.  Designed to relieve court congestion and utilize the breadth of the Central District’s Magistrate Judges’ expertise, this Program will assign a portion of the Court’s civil cases upon filing directly to a Magistrate Judge.  The parties will receive a notice and be provided an opportunity to decline consent to a Magistrate Judge within the following time periods:

• For original actions filed directly in the District Court:  The Court must receive a completed declination of consent form no later than 14 days after issuance by the Clerk’s Office or service of the form by the initiating party.  For incarcerated pro se plaintiffs, the Court must receive a completed declination of consent form no later than 21 days after service of the form.
• For removal actions or matters being transferred to the Central District:  The Court must receive a completed declination of consent form no later than 7 days after issuance by the Clerk’s Office or service of the form by the initiating party. 

Counsel must submit the declination of consent form by email to optout_consent@cacd.uscourts.gov.  Pro se litigants may submit the declination of consent form electronically through the Court’s Electronic Document Submission System (“EDSS”), submit it at the intake window of any courthouse of the Central District or mail it in paper format to the following address:  United States District Court c/o Opt Out Consent Program, 255 E. Temple Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012. 

After issued by the Clerk’s Office, the declination of consent form will not be docketed to ensure the identity of the opting-out party will be masked, consistent with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 73.  The party declining consent should not email the form to the assigned Magistrate Judge, the Magistrate Judge’s chambers email inbox, or e-file it on the docket. 

If a timely declination of consent form is received, the case will be assigned randomly to a District Judge and a new Magistrate Judge, to handle discovery matters.  

If no timely declination of consent form is received, the parties will be deemed to have consented knowingly and voluntarily to the jurisdiction of a Magistrate Judge for all purposes, including trial.    

This program is to the benefit of lawyers and their clients.  Civil cases participating in the program will see a speedier adjudication before the Court’s talented and capable Magistrate Judges.  The Magistrate Judges do not have the same scheduling restrictions as do the District Judges, who are bound to prioritize the adjudication of criminal cases given Constitutional and statutory requirements.  The Magistrate Judges, thus, can provide the parties a certain date for trial and normally much closer in time to case filing than can the District Judges.  The Magistrate Judges have diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise.  To learn more about the Court’s Magistrate Judges, consult each Judge’s schedules and procedures page on the Court’s website (https://www.cacd.uscourts.gov/judges-schedules-procedures). 

The following civil cases are not eligible for assignment to a Magistrate Judge under the opt-out consent program:  cases filed with a request for a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction, death penalty habeas corpus petitions, bankruptcy appeals, bankruptcy withdrawal of reference cases, or cases filed with a notice of related cases. 

Refer to the Court's Local Rules and General Orders for more information.