Johnson v. Miller

Opinion

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6 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT SEATTLE 8 9 BRENDA M. JOHNSON, CASE NO. C21-5539-BHS 10 Plaintiff, ORDER ON REVIEW OF MOTION FOR RECUSAL 11 v. 12 AMBER MILLER, et al., 13 Defendants.

14 This matter is before the Court on Plaintiff Brenda M. Johnson’s Motion seeking 15 recusal of Judges Creatura and Settle. Dkt #7. These judges have separately reviewed this 16 Motion, declined to recuse, and in accordance with this Court’s Local Civil Rules, referred this 17 matter to the undersigned for review. Dkts. #8 and #9; LCR 3(f). 18 A judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his 19 impartiality “might reasonably be questioned.” 28 U.S.C. § 455(a). Federal judges also shall 20 disqualify themselves in circumstances where they have a personal bias or prejudice concerning 21 a party or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding. 28 22 U.S.C. § 455(b)(1). Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 144, “whenever a party to any proceeding in a 23 district court makes and files a timely and sufficient affidavit that the judge before whom the 24 1 matter is pending has a personal bias or prejudice either against him or in favor of any adverse 2 party, such judge shall proceed no further therein, but another judge shall be assigned to hear 3 such proceeding.” “[A] judge’s prior adverse ruling is not sufficient cause for recusal.” United 4 States v. Studley, 783 F.2d 934, 939 (9th Cir. 1986); see also Taylor v. Regents of Univ. of Cal., 5 993 F.2d 710, 712 (9th Cir. 1993) (“To warrant recusal, judicial bias must stem from an

6 extrajudicial source.”). 7 The Court has reviewed the above Motion and finds Plaintiff has failed to demonstrate 8 bias. Plaintiff states only that Judge Settle has worked on her prior cases. Dkt. #7. Judge 9 Settle’s involvement in related cases, even if true, is a typical practice of this Court and cannot 10 constitute an extrajudicial source of bias. 11 Plaintiff has otherwise failed to present a reasonable basis to question the impartiality of 12 either Judge Creatura or Judge Settle. Accordingly, the Court finds and ORDERS that the 13 above Orders declining to recuse, Dkts. #8 and #9, are AFFIRMED. 14 DATED this 27th day of August, 2021.

16 A 17 RICARDO S. MARTINEZ 18 CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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