SECTION 155.151. Assignment of Judges to Cases

(a) Discretion of Chief Judge. Assignment of judges to cases is at the discretion of the Chief Judge and the Chief Judge's designees and is not subject to request except as provided by §155.152 of this subchapter.

(b) Judge's inability to continue presiding. If a judge is unable to continue presiding or to issue a decision or proposal for decision after the conclusion of the hearing, the Chief Judge or the Chief Judge's designee may reassign the case to another judge. That judge shall review the existing record and need not repeat previous proceedings but may conduct further proceedings as necessary.

(c) Assignment of more than one judge. More than one judge may be assigned to a case.

(1) If more than one judge is assigned to a case, the judges may divide their areas of responsibility.

(2) Evidentiary and procedural questions will be resolved by the judge presiding at the time the issues arise or may be referred to another judge assigned to the case.

(d) Temporary assignments. Cases may be temporarily assigned to a judge or panel of judges to decide regularly occurring threshold issues.

Source Note: The provisions of this §155.151 adopted to be effective November 26, 2008, 33 TexReg 9451; amended to be effective January 1, 2017, 41 TexReg 8593