No Recusal Based on a Hypothetical Built on a Foundation of Speculation

Judge Richard Kyle, U.S. District Court Judge (D. Minn.) has rejected a motion to recuse himself in a huge raft of litigation against Medtronic based on Medtronic’s Sprint Fidelis defibrillator lead. The basis for the plaintiffs’ motion was the fact that his son, Richard Kyle, Jr., is employed with Medtronic’s outside counsel, Fredrikson & Byron (where he practices in white collar defense (and apparently never for Medtronic)). Cf. 28 U.S.C. Sect. 455; 28 U.S.C. Sect. 144.

Kyle rejected that argument, calling it “little more than a hypothetical house of cards” offering “nothing more than the gossamer strands of speculation and surmise to support it.”