The Central District of California Will Launch Opt-Out Civil Consent to Magistrate Judges Program on December 1, 2024

The Central District of California is pleased to announce it will launch an Opt-Out Civil Consent to Magistrate Judges Program on December 1, 2024.  Designed to relieve court congestion and utilize the breadth of the Central District’s Magistrate Judges’ expertise, this Program will assign a portion of the Court’s civil cases upon filing directly to a Magistrate Judge.  The parties will receive a notice of the assignment and be provided an opportunity to opt-out of the program during a limited period of time.  If no timely opt-out form is received, the parties will be deemed to have knowingly and voluntarily consented to the jurisdiction of the Magistrate Judge for all purposes including trial.  The Central District joins other district courts in the Ninth Circuit, including the Eastern District of Washington, the Western District of Washington, the District of Idaho, the District of Montana, and the District of Nevada, in adopting an opt-out civil consent to Magistrate Judges program.

This program is to the benefit of lawyers and their clients.  Civil cases participating in the program will see a speedier adjudication before the Court’s talented and capable Magistrate Judges.  The Magistrate Judges do not have the same scheduling restrictions as do the District Judges, who are bound to prioritize the adjudication of criminal cases given Constitutional and statutory requirements.  The Magistrate Judges, thus, can provide the parties a certain date for trial and normally much closer in time to case filing than can the District Judges.  The Magistrate Judges have diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise.  To learn more about the Court’s Magistrate Judges, consult the Court’s website.

For more detailed information about the opt-out consent program, see the Notice from the Clerk, issued simultaneously with this press release.

Note this program is in addition to the Court’s Voluntary Consent Program, wherein parties to civil cases can elect to consent to the jurisdiction of a particular Magistrate Judge, if the Magistrate Judge and the assigned District Judge agree to the transfer, for all purposes including trial.    

The Central District of California is comprised of the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo.  It serves more than 19.3 million people, nearly half the population of the State of California.

*******************
BRIAN D. KARTH
DISTRICT COURT EXECUTIVE / CLERK OF COURT