Maxine M. Chesney

As someone else noted, she is easily persuaded by government lawyers, unable to see through deceptive and misleading arguments, perjury, and discovery misconduct. She made legal errors in her opinions. Her age should be a concern. In her 80s, she should retire from the bench.

My client was a third-party involved in a very large action as the result of a discovery dispute. Plaintiffs' class attorney was prosecuting an action based on a prior government prosecution, and plainly had no independent evidence supporting the filing of suit. Naturally, class plaintiffs' issued grossly overbroad discovery, imposing massive costs on the third parties dragged into plaintiffs' dragnet. The district judge (or her law clerks) failed to follow any of the case law, all of which was deferential to third-parties trapped in someone else's case. There was no evident understanding of the industry in which the case arose, the inadequacies of plaintiffs' case, or how gross an imposition compliance was - in a context where plaintiffs' counsel had plainly done no homework, except to theorize off of the government's earlier prosecution (with different burdens of proof and focus). How many cases like these result in massive waste to third parties all because a judge can't grasp what is going on.