Halliburton v. Ballin
| Decision Date | 23 September 2022 |
| Docket Number | W2022-01208-COA-T10B-CV |
| Parties | MICHAEL HALLIBURTON v. BLAKE BALLIN, ET AL. |
| Court | Tennessee Court of Appeals |
Assigned on Briefs September 2, 2022
Appeal from the Circuit Court for Shelby County No. CT-2948-20 Gina C. Higgins, Judge
This is an accelerated interlocutory appeal from the denial of motions for recusal of the trial judge. Having carefully reviewed the record provided by the appellant, we affirm the decision of the trial court denying the motions.
Tenn S.Ct. R. 10B Interlocutory Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Circuit Court Affirmed and Remanded
Michael Cory Halliburton, Hartsville, Tennessee, pro se.
Jeffrey E. Nicoson, Memphis, Tennessee, for the appellees, Blake Daniel Ballin and Ballin, Ballin & Fishman PC.
OPINION
This suit was filed by a pro se incarcerated plaintiff, Michael Halliburton, against his former counsel. The record provided to this Court by Mr. Halliburton is extremely limited and only contains selected documents filed by Mr. Halliburton in the trial court, with no transcript of any hearing or order entered by the court aside from the order in which the trial judge declined to recuse herself.[1] It appears that, in 2020, the defendants filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings and Mr. Halliburton filed a motion to hold the case in abeyance. The record before us contains a few pages from a "Motion for Judicial Disqualification," in which Mr. Halliburton subsequently requested that Judge Gina Higgins recuse herself. The motion is not stamped as filed,[2] but it states that Mr. Halliburton placed it in the prison mail system for mailing on July 13, 2021. The motion in the record only contains pages "1 of 5," "3 of 5," and "5 of 5." Within those three pages, Mr. Halliburton asserted that Judge Higgins had engaged in conduct prejudicial to him as a result of bias. First, he claimed that during a hearing on November 19, 2020, Judge Higgins had "referred to the Plaintiff as the 'elephant in the room' solely because he was appearing pro se." Next, Mr. Halliburton asserted that during a hearing on his motion to hold the case in abeyance and the defendants' motion to dismiss on July 6, 2021, he brought to the attention of the court that he had mailed an answer to a supplemental memorandum filed by the defendants and was told that it had not been filed with the court. He claimed that Judge Higgins had proceeded with the hearing anyway, which was "by definition impartial" when he did not have his documents before the court but the opposing party did. Mr. Halliburton contended that Judge Higgins had "dismissed the documents as without merit before Plaintiff's documents were before the Court," indicating that they were "irrelevant to her decision-making process."
The recusal motion was not supported by an affidavit, nor did it state that it was not being presented for any improper purpose, as required by Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 10B.[3] The record contains a "Reply" filed by Mr. Halliburton, which indicates that the defendants had filed a response to the motion for recusal, although the defendants' response is not in the record. In his Reply, Mr. Halliburton acknowledged the defendants' argument that his recusal motion failed to meet the "filing requirements" for a motion for recusal. Mr. Halliburton conceded that he "erred in not making a statement in his motion that he was not filing to cause undue delay[.]" He suggested that he could easily correct the error by refiling the recusal motion if necessary. He claimed that he "did make a sworn statement" in his motion for recusal, apparently in reference to the fact that the motion concluded by stating: "The above is true to the best of my knowledge, information and belief." As for the merits of his motion, Mr. Halliburton maintained that Judge Higgins had indicated bias by referring to "a party to the suit as an animal[.]" Regarding his missing filing, Mr. Halliburton said, "It may be that the judge said that she would read Plaintiff's brief[.]" Still, he said the problem was that his opponent's brief was read prior to the hearing when his was not. Mr. Halliburton said it appeared that another brief he mailed might not have been filed by the court clerk either, but, he added, he had "no control over the prison's mail room[.]"
The original recusal motion went unresolved for several months. The defendants apparently filed a motion requesting that the court resolve the outstanding request for recusal because, although the defendants' motion does not appear in the record before us, the record does contain Mr. Halliburton's response in opposition. Mr. Halliburton contended that the trial court should "do[] nothing until my federal habeas petition is fully and completely adjudicated and exhausted in the federal courts." He claimed that Judge Higgins had "set the case in de facto abeyance," as he had previously requested. Mr. Halliburton argued that a hearing prior to resolution of his habeas petition would serve no purpose. At the same time, however, he suggested that Judge Higgins had acted improperly under Rule 10B by deferring ruling on the recusal motion.
Mr. Halliburton subsequently filed a second motion for recusal, this time including the necessary language under Rule 10B and including a declaration under penalty of perjury. Again, the motion in the record before us is not stamped as filed, but it was notarized on July 9, 2022. The second recusal motion repeated the two assertions made in the first motion: that Judge Higgins referred to Mr. Halliburton as the "elephant in the room" at a hearing on November 19, 2020, and she proceeded with a hearing on July 6, 2021, despite the fact that his filings had not been received by the court or by opposing counsel. According to the second recusal motion, Mr. Halliburton had asked the court to continue the proceedings until his filing could be reviewed, but Judge Higgins declined. He said that he was permitted to present his argument but that Judge Higgins would not allow him to read his entire filing into the record. He argued that Judge Higgins had prejudged the matter "based on her bias against a pro se Plaintiff filing a suit against an officer of the court." Additionally, however, Mr. Halliburton asserted that "the problem of judicial bias" extended beyond Judge Higgins, and he discussed numerous rulings made by many judges at various stages of his criminal proceedings that, in his view, demonstrated pervasive bias against him.
After a hearing, the trial court entered an order denying both of Mr. Halliburton's motions for recusal on August 17, 2022. Judge Higgins found that the first recusal motion filed by Mr. Halliburton was deficient and did not comply with Rule 10B because no affidavit was included with the motion and it did not contain a statement that the motion was not being presented for an improper purpose. As such, the trial court summarily denied the first motion for recusal for failure to comply with Rule 10B.
Next, the trial court addressed the second recusal motion, which the court stated was filed on July 18, 2022. The trial court noted that the first few pages of the second motion repeated the allegations made in the first motion. As for the allegation that she had referred to Mr. Halliburton as the "elephant in the room," Judge Higgins explained that she "did describe this case as being the elephant in the room" when questioning Mr. Halliburton regarding the rules and explaining the consequences of self-representation in cases such as this. (Emphasis added). However, Judge Higgins said that the "complexity of the issues" was "the elephant in the room, not the plaintiff." She "categorically and specifically denie[d] that [she] referred to plaintiff as the elephant in the room." Judge Higgins stated that her reference to the complex issues and difficulty of the process did not indicate bias toward Mr. Halliburton or provide a basis for recusal.
Judge Higgins next addressed the allegation that she refused Mr. Halliburton's request to continue a hearing until she had read his responsive pleadings. She stated that "[a] review of the transcript of the hearing evidences that the court explained why the pleadings were not relevant to the motion." In any event, however, Judge Higgins further noted that she did not rule on the motion that day and allowed time for the court to read all of the pleadings and to allow Mr. Halliburton to submit additional information. "Moreover," Judge Higgins added, "the court allowed [Mr. Halliburton] to argue any point he wished to make, including those in any pleading he filed or submitted that was not filed prior to the hearing on the motion." She noted that it was her role to determine what was relevant with respect to the motion and that if Mr. Halliburton disagreed he had the option of appealing her substantive ruling. Judge Higgins stated that she had been accommodating to Mr. Halliburton, and she denied harboring any bias or prejudice toward him.
Finally Judge Higgins noted that Mr. Halliburton's second motion "delve[d] into a litany of conspiracy theories that involve his criminal court cases and the respective trial court and appellate court judges." She concluded that his references to the consequences of his prior experiences with the court system were not a proper basis for her recusal in this case and were more appropriate subjects for appeals to courts with the authority and jurisdiction to adjudicate his claims. Mr. Halliburton timely filed a petition for an accelerated interlocutory appeal to this Court. Based on...
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