WILLIAMS v. DOW CHEMICAL COMPANY (2020)

Writ denied.

The court reporter is the witness, not the judge. The motion to recuse was therefore correctly denied pursuant to C. C. P. article 154. In any event, neither the merits of whether the trial judge should be recused, or the contumacious behavior occurred, have yet been addressed.

La. Code Civ. P. art. 154 provides, in pertinent part: “If a valid ground for recusation is set forth in the motion, the judge shall either recuse himself, or refer the motion to another judge or a judge ad hoc․” Obviously, if such a motion does not contain “valid grounds,” the trial judge can—and should—summarily issue a denial. However, the allegations of the recusation motion at issue here, if proven to be true, demonstrate a valid ground for recusal. At a minimum, the allegations in the motion at issue in this highly contested and protracted litigation mandates that the trial judge refer it to another judge through the random allotment process. See La. Code Civ. P. arts. 151(A)(4), 154, 155(B). See also Kidd v. Caldwell, 371 So. 2d 247, 256 (La. 1979) (on rehearing) (Tate, J.).

Hughes, J., would grant and assigns reasons. Crichton, J., additionally concurs and assigns reasons. Genovese, J., would grant.