Knowing the Judge Not Enough for Judicial Recusal

Tennessee case summary on judicial recusal in divorce.

Donald Eugene Winder, III v. Kara Elizabeth Winder

In October, 2019, this divorce case from Meigs County, Tennessee, was decided by the Tennessee Supreme Court.  The Court of Appeals had previously held  that the trial judge had not given sufficient reasons for denying a motion for recusal.  The wife had requested that the trial judge be recused, since the husband was a lawyer, was friends with the judge, Casey Mark Stokes, and regularly appeared in the judge’s court.  The Court of Appeals held that the trial court should have stated reasons for the denial.  An appeal was taken to the Tennessee Supreme Court, and the case was remanded to the Court of Appeals to again decide whether the denial of the recusal motion was proper.

The appeals court noted that the husband had denied the allegations that he socialized personally with the trial judge.  It also noted that the trial court had specifically addressed the allegations in its order denying recusal.

Also, the trial court’s order acknowledged that the husband’s law firm sometimes appeared before the judge, but that it was not more than any other attorney, and that the husband was not on the court’s appointments list.

The trial judge also noted that he did not regularly socialize with either party, but that because of their professions, their paths did occasionally cross.  For example, the judge noted that at a bar association Christmas party, the judge had interacted with both the husband and wife.

Based upon its review of the evidence, the Court agreed with the lower court that any inference of bias had been adequately rebutted, and that the trial court had correctly denied the motion.  For this reason, it affirmed the trial court’s findings.

No. E2019-01636-COA-T10B-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Nov. 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.