The father of this blog’s publisher was born in Orange, Texas, so developments in Lake Charles, Louisiana are always of interest. In IFG Port Holdings v. Lake Charles Harbor & Terminal District, which produced a $125 million judgment, a panel majority found that the losing party had not given effective consent to proceeding before a magistrate judge when the party lacked knowledge of a close personal relationship between the judge and opposing counsel:

Overwhelming evidence shows a close family friendship between Judge Kay and Monk. And vanishingly little direct or circumstantial evidence suggests the Port actually knew about the friendship before judgment. The district court applied the right knowledge standard to these facts: Only the Port’s actual knowledge of the nature and extent of the Monk-Kay friendship before judgment is sufficient to show their knowing consent.

No. 24-30552 (Sept. 8, 2026). A dissent was concerned that this result would encourage satellite litigation involving ill-founded attacks on judges.

After rendition of a substantial judgment in a matter tried to a magistrate judge, the defendant argued that its consent to proceed before the magistrate judge was invalid, because it was unaware of an allegedly close friendship between the magistrate judge and plaintiff’s counsel at that time. The Fifth Circut held: “[W]e do not have a complete factual record,” noting a lack of information about (1) the full extent of the relationship, (2) the specific disclosures made about it–and when they were made, and (3) whether the defendant unduly delayed in raising its argument about the relationship. IFG Port Holdings LLC v. Lake Charles Harbor & Terminal District, No. 22-30398 (Sept. 21, 2023) (The importance of valid consent was also the focus of a 2021 Fifth Circuit case that reversed after a trial.)