A couple of months ago, I highlighted the certiorari petition that former Solicitor General Paul Clement filed on behalf of Sierra Pacific Industries in the extraordinary litigation arising out of the Moonlight Fire in California in 2007. That petition presents these two questions:
- Whether a federal court adjudicating a motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(d)(3) for “fraud on the court” may consider the totality of the evidence of fraud, including evidence that was known at the time of judgment, or is instead strictly limited to considering only later-discovered evidence in isolation.
- Whether a district court judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned, thereby requiring recusal under 28 U.S.C. §455(a), when he not only follows the prosecution on social media, but also, just hours after denying relief to the opposing party, “tweets” a headline and link to a news article concerning the proceedings pending before him.
As Tony Mauro and Marcia Coyle report (in second item here), now that the Department of Justice has filed its opposition and Paul Clement has filed Sierra Pacific’s reply, the certiorari petition is teed up for action at the Court’s conference tomorrow.