“Maybe You Should Have Hired a Lawyer to Represent You” Is Not Bias

Tennessee case summary on judicial bias and recusal in divorce.

Ronna Lyn Ueber v. Anthony James Ueber

Judicial bias required for recusal requires very specific evidence.

The husband and wife in this Williamson County, Tennessee, case were divorced in 2018, after a three day trial.  After the order granting the divorce was entered, the attorneys for the wife moved to withdraw from the case based upon non-payment of their fees.  They later asked for a judgment for their remaining fees.  Both the trial and these motions were heard by Judge Joseph Woodruff, who ruled against the wife.

Two months after the hearing on the attorney’s fees, the wife made a motion for the judge to recuse himself.  She alleged actual and perceived bias and lack of impartiality.

The trial court denied the motion, finding that while the wife was dissatisfied with a number of rulings, she didn’t point to any specific acts of misconduct.  The wife then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.  That court examined the record and concluded that oral argument was not necessary.  Therefore, it considered the case based upon the written filings.

The appeals court first noted that under the relevant standard of review, the case would be reviewed de novo, with no presumption of correctness.  It also noted that the party seeking recusal, in this case the wife, bears the burden of proof.

The wife’s former attorneys, who were appellees, first argued that the motion to recuse was not timely.  However, the appeals court elected to proceed directly to the merits of the claim, after first concluding that the wife’s affidavits were proper procedurally.

The appeals court, citing an earlier case, stated that for a judge to be recused, the prejudice must be of a personal character a directed at the litigant.  It must come from an extrajudicial source, rather than what the judge learned from participating in the case.

In this case, the wife’s claims were based upon the judge’s alleged failure to follow precedent in making rulings.  But the appeals court pointed out that there was no evidence that the alleged bias came from an extrajudicial source.  It also examined all of the alleged bias conduct and found that it did not rise to the level warranting recusal.

The wife also pointed to various statements made by the trial judge, such as “then maybe you should have hired a lawyer to represent you,” and a warning that if the wife continued to speak, a deputy would escort her to a holding cell.  But the appeals court, looking at all of the statements in context, concluded that they did not warrant recusal.

For these reasons, the Court of Appeals affirmed the order and assessed the costs of appeal against the wife.

No. M2018-02053-COA-T10B-CV  (Tenn. Ct. App. Jan. 31, 2019).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see The Tennessee Divorce Process: How Divorces Work Start to Finish.