Senate Bill 250 proposes that a judge "SHALL CONTINUE A CIVIL PROCEEDING IF ALL PARTIES AGREE TO THE CONTINUANCE."
The current practice gives a judge all the discretion to grant, or not grant a requested continuance. Things happen-- witnesses get sick, settlement discussions break-out as parties assess the true cost of proceeding with a case or hearing, and your lawyer may even get sick or have a family emergency.
I have stood before a judge to request a continuance based on a family emergency, with the consent of the other lawyer, only to be told that "the case can proceed with someone else from your office." This was wrong for several reasons, and could have worked a great hardship on our client had I not chosen to ignore the needs of my family. This bill seems to address such a situation.
But even where it might benefit lawyers, I question the wisdom of chipping away at a judge's discretion to run his or her courtroom. We lawyers are in service of the court, as officers of the court, to promote the smooth administration of justice. Ultimately, the judge is our boss on procedural issues in addition to being the final arbiter of the law in our cases.
As a hedge against unwarranted and last minute agreement to postpone a civil proceeding the bill does grant to the court discretion to assess costs. That means if you pull a case on the day of a jury trial, and the court has already pulled a few dozen folks from their jobs to create your jury pool, you and your client may become responsible for paying members of that pool.
But as I write this, I find my objection to this bill is the potential disruption to the court of last minute private agreements to pull hearings and trials. A court schedules events far in advance to permit parties to prepare, and to subpoena witnesses to testify. Those witnesses take time off work well in advance of the court event. Last minute continuances by private agreement, and without a judge weighing the relative inconvenience imposed on the court and others, will cause significant disruption. For example, a court room may well sit empty and unused because of the last minute hole in the schedule-- there is no time to bring in a replacement case at the last minute.
To save the proposal, I suggest that it set a deadline at least thirty-days prior to a court event for such agreements to postpone. Requests inside thirty-days should remain within the sole discretion of the court. This is consistent with existing practice in some jurisdictions. In Baltimore City, for example, requests made inside thirty-days cannot be made by written motion-- you must show up in person to make the request and often argue with the judge and opposing counsel.
The proposal must also consider court designated "disposition" dates, which determine the latest by which a case must be concluded. Private agreements cannot operate to push case disposition too far into the future or there will be a backlog of unresolved cases.
But a good start. Let's see if Sen. Zirkin and Sen. Norman can fine tune the proposal so that it operates effectively.
Visit our website and see what we've been working on.
