Losing Motions Not Grounds for Judicial Recusal

Tennessee case summary on recusal in divorce.

Pamela Diane Stark v. Joe Edward Stark

The wife in this Shelby County, Tennessee case filed for divorce in 2018.  The husband was a Memphis police officer, and the wife was an attorney working for the district attorney general.  The wife made a claim that the husband committed domestic violence.  The wife scheduled various depositions, and the husband made a motion requesting that the depositions be held at the courthouse with a bailiff present.  His motion also referred to various Facebook posts made by the wife.

A hearing on the motion was held before Judge Robert Weiss, who ruled that the wife should remove the Facebook posts.  The wife told the judge, “you might as well take me into custody right now.”  When the wife said that she would not remove the posts, Judge Weiss did exactly that, and ordered her held until she agreed to remove the posts and apologized to the court.

Eventually, the wife filed a motion for the judge to recuse himself.  The court held that the motion was procedurally deficient, since it was not accompanied by an affidavit.  The wife then appealed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

The Court of Appeals partially bypassed the procedural deficiency issue, by noting that the trial court had considered the merits of the motion despite this problem.  Instead, it turned to the timeliness of the motion.  The lower court had also found that the order was not timely.

In particular, the wife had filed the motion after the court had ruled on some, but not all of the husband’s motions.  When the appeals court examined the record, it noted that this gave the wife the opportunity to experiment with recusal motions by making one, and then reserving the possibility of making another one later.  But even though the appeals court tended to agree with this position, it did consider the merits of her motion.

It was on the merits of the case that the wife’s appeal was denied.  The wife’s grounds for recusal were alleged bias, as shown by the trial court granting relief beyond what was requested.  The appeals court found that the argument was “difficult to discern,” and that the trial court had found her guilty of unpredictable and inappropriate behavior.  In short, the wife had failed to show an improper motive on the part of the trial judge.

After a careful examination of the evidence, the Court of Appeals concluded that the trial judge had acted properly.  Therefore, it affirmed the denial of the recusal motion.  It also taxed the costs of the appeal against the wife.

No. W2019-00901-COA-T10B-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Jun. 18,  2019).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

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