A Retrospective (1990-2014)
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The United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York: A Retrospective (1990-2014) The New York County Lawyers Association Committee on the Federal Courts May 2015 Copyright May 2015 New York County Lawyers Association 14 Vesey Street, New York, NY 10007 phone: (212) 267-6646; fax: (212) 406-9252 Additional copies may be obtained on-line at the NYCLA website: www.nycla.org TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 1 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE COURT (1865-1990)............................................................ 3 Founding: 1865 ........................................................................................................... 3 The Early Era: 1866-1965 ........................................................................................... 3 The Modern Era: 1965-1990 ....................................................................................... 5 1990-2014: A NEW ERA ...................................................................................................... 6 An Increasing Docket .................................................................................................. 6 Two New Courthouses for a New Era ........................................................................ 7 The Vital Role of the Eastern District’s Senior Judges............................................. 10 The Eastern District’s Magistrate Judges: An Indispensable Resource ................... 11 The Bankruptcy Court ............................................................................................... 12 1990-2014: NOTABLE CASES, TRIALS AND DECISIONS ......................................... 16 Admiralty Law .......................................................................................................... 16 Antitrust .................................................................................................................... 18 Bankruptcy ................................................................................................................ 21 Civil Rights ............................................................................................................... 22 Class Action Litigation ............................................................................................. 32 Commercial Law ....................................................................................................... 36 Criminal Law ............................................................................................................ 42 Discovery .................................................................................................................. 90 Environmental Law ................................................................................................... 94 Family Law ............................................................................................................... 97 First Amendment ....................................................................................................... 99 Intellectual Property ................................................................................................ 101 International Law .................................................................................................... 105 Securities Litigation ................................................................................................ 108 CASE INDEX .................................................................................................................... 110 IN MEMORIAM ............................................................................................................... 119 MEMBERS OF THE NEW YORK COUNTY LAWYERS ASSOCIATION, COMMITTEE ON THE FEDERAL COURTS ................................................................ 125 APPENDIX ........................................................................................................................ 128 Chief Judges of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York ............................................................................................................. 128 Active Judges of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York ............................................................................................................. 129 Senior Judges of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York ............................................................................................................. 134 Magistrate Judges of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York ........................................................................................................ 139 Bankruptcy Judges of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York ........................................................................................................ 143 Former Judges of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York (1990-2014) ........................................................................................ 145 Former Magistrate Judges of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York (1990-2014) ...................................................................... 146 Former Bankruptcy Judges of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York (1990-2014) ...................................................................... 148 Introduction On behalf of the Board of Judges, I wish to express our deep gratitude to the New York County Lawyers Association Committee on the Federal Courts for its prodigious effort in producing this comprehensive Retrospective of the work of our court on the occasion of its 150th Anniversary. The Eastern District has seen tremendous growth over the last 150 years, both in the number of judges on the Eastern District’s bench and the population the court serves. In 1865, there was a single judge. Today, we have 28 Article III Judges and 14 Magistrate Judges. This growth is matched by the growing population of the district. In 1865, the Eastern District served a population of 300,000 people. It now serves a population of over 8.2 million. Based on population, it is the largest district in the Second Circuit. The caseload of the Eastern District has also greatly increased since the court’s founding and has become far more diverse. The docket in the court’s early history consisted largely of admiralty cases. Today it includes complex criminal prosecutions, sophisticated commercial litigation, and civil rights actions. The last twenty-five years, the focus of this Retrospective, have brought significant changes. We constructed two new courthouses in the Eastern District: the Alfonse M. D’Amato Courthouse in Central Islip and the Theodore Roosevelt Courthouse in Brooklyn. The composition of our bench has changed considerably. On our 125th Anniversary, there was one woman on the bench. Today the majority of the active judges are women. We have been able to meet the challenges of our increased caseload with greatly increased numbers of senior judges. The world has also changed: technology and terrorism have altered our landscape. With the advent of electronic case filing, attorneys can file complaints and documents from their computers. The dangerous world in which we live has altered our dockets and required increased security measures. Post-9/11, the Eastern District has seen more terrorist prosecutions than any court in the nation. To address the security risk this creates, we have undertaken a construction project to create a secure perimeter for the courthouse. What has remained the same throughout the history of the Eastern District, however, is the court’s dedication to deciding all cases fairly and efficiently. As one of the Eastern District’s finest jurists, the late Judge Eugene H. Nickerson, stated: It would be presumptuous for a district court to assess the significance of the work it does. It is enough for trial judges that they are called upon to interpret those constitutional affirmations of liberty now almost two hundred years old, and, in the words of the oath we take, to “administer justice without respect to persons” and to “do equal right to the poor and to the rich.” We do not regard that as an 1 ignoble task.1 My colleagues and I join Judge Nickerson in affirming our commitment to fair and impartial justice. Hopefully, the pages that follow confirm that commitment. Carol Bagley Amon, Chief Judge 1 Hon. Eugene H. Nickerson, United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York: Footnotes to Its History, Second Circuit History Lectures (Apr. 29, 1982). 2 A Brief History of the Court (1865-1990) Founding: 1865 The Eastern District of New York was created for the great commercial Port of New York as a result of an argument in the United States Senate. In 1865, the Port of New York was booming with business, and the Federal Judicial branch of the Southern District of New York was not equipped to handle the vast amount of admiralty litigation. Many, particularly the senator from Connecticut, thought it was irrational to have two federal judicial institutions within three miles of each other, competing for business, and the Eastern District only gaining cases out of the Port. The Senate nevertheless voted 26 to 7 to have the matter be solved internally by the State of New York, whose senators were in favor of forming the Eastern District. Therefore, in 1865,