Attorneys representing a commercial tenant at the Port of Lake Charles have accused two federal judges of engaging in communications that cast doubt on the impartiality of an ongoing legal proceeding in the Western District of Louisiana.
In a memorandum filed June 4, attorneys Kay Theunissen and Eric LaFleur, who represent IFG Port Holdings LLC, are seeking to have a legal dispute involving IFG and the port transferred to a new judge. A visiting judge, Michael Truncale of the Eastern District of Texas, is currently overseeing the case in the Western District.
The memorandum accuses Western District Judge James Cain Jr., who has been recused from the case, of being present during the course of a recent evidentiary hearing and conversing with the counsel for the port and port witnesses. Cain’s presence and interaction with Truncale and the port’s attorney or witnesses fly in the face of the Western District’s recusal order and cast doubt on the impartiality of the hearing, according to the IFG attorneys.
“To give effect to the district’s recusal order, avoid the appearance of partiality and ensure that justice is done in this case, IFG respectfully requests that this matter be referred to a new judge, who is not subject to the recusal order, for further proceedings,” the memorandum states.
The “sprawling commercial dispute” between the port and IFG goes back more than a decade and involves a grain export project and disagreement over oversight and payments for channel dredging, according to a 2023 appeals court decision. At one point, a previous magistrate judge awarded $124.5 million in damages to IFG, but that award was vacated.
“At a minimum … IFG respectfully requests discovery and disclosure concerning the extraordinary events that gave rise to Judge Cain’s presence in the courtroom and his interactions with the parties, counsel, witnesses and the presiding judge notwithstanding Judge Cain’s recusal from this proceeding,” the memorandum says.
The incidents involving Cain occurred on the mornings of April 22 and April 24, according to the IFG attorneys. All of the judges and magistrate judges in the district had been ordered recused from the case involving IFG and the port.
Cain denied any misconduct occurred.
“This allegation is personally ridiculous, and I’m shocked that these lawyers would file something like that,” he told the Louisiana Record.
Cain acknowledged that he did step into Trancale’s courtroom one morning, but he said didn’t discuss anything about the ongoing litigation and saw Trancale for about three minutes in his chambers.
“As a federal judge, I don’t give interviews,” he said. “But … I feel like I need to make a clarification comment about it. I’m recused from that case. I don’t know anything about that case. That case predates me taking the federal bench.”
Cain was simply checking in with Trancale as a courtesy to an out-of-state judge, he said.
“Yes, all the lawyers in there said, ‘Hi Judge Cain,’ and I said, ‘Hello, how are you all doing? Good to see you all,’” he said. “And I was simply stepping in there to see if Judge Trancale needed anything because he was from out of town.”
Asked if he would cooperate with any future discovery requests over the matter, Cain said, “I don’t know what discovery they would do on something like this. I’m not getting in the middle of that or commenting on that.”
Truncale has said on the record that he is friends with Cain, according to the memorandum, and that raises the issue of the role Truncale played in creating the circumstances in which Cain engaged in “one-sided communications with the port, its counsel and a mid-testimony port witness,” according to the memorandum.