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Former Houston bankruptcy judge David Jones has asked a federal court to toss a lawsuit that revealed his romantic relationship with a bankruptcy attorney and ultimately led to his resignation, saying he cannot be personally sued over his rulings as a judge, Reuters reported. Jones, who oversaw the complex case panel in the Southern District of Texas and was the busiest bankruptcy judge in the U.S., said in October he would resign after publicly acknowledging he had been living for years with his longtime romantic partner Elizabeth Freeman, who was a bankruptcy partner at the law firm Jackson Walker until December 2022. The firm represented many companies that filed for bankruptcy in Jones' Houston court, often acting as local counsel for larger law firms like Kirkland & Ellis. Jones acknowledged the years-long relationship in the wake of an Oct. 4 lawsuit by a McDermott International shareholder, who sued Jones over his rulings in the energy company's bankruptcy. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit initiated a misconduct complaint and said that there was probable cause to believe that Jones committed an ethical violation by failing to disclose his relationship, but the court ended its investigation when Jones resigned.

A Texas bankruptcy judge recommended against a government request to move a case challenging fees paid to a law firm that were approved by a former judge who was in an undisclosed relationship with one of the firm’s lawyers, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The U.S. Trustee, a division of the Justice Department that functions as a watchdog for the nation’s bankruptcy system, is challenging roughly $13 million of fees earned by Texas law firm Jackson Walker in 17 bankruptcy cases over which former bankruptcy judge David R. Jones presided. One of Jackson Walker’s partners, Elizabeth Freeman, lived with Jones during that time and owned a house with him in the Houston area, which neither Jones, Freeman nor Jackson Walker revealed at the time. Jones resigned from the bench in October after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals started an investigation and filed a complaint stating it had found probable cause of misconduct. Southern District of Texas Chief Bankruptcy Judge Eduardo Rodriguez, who consolidated the government’s 17 motions to transfer the Jackson Walker fee matters under his watch, said the request didn’t meet the standard that allows such a move. He determined the motions weren’t filed in a timely manner, and that the trustee didn’t establish that the transfer would benefit the progress of the 17 bankruptcy cases. Instead, Judge Rodriguez said, the matter should stay in his court. This consolidated approach would mostly alleviate the concerns over efficiency raised by the government and Jackson Walker, the judge said.

Houston bankruptcy court rejected a request from creditors of hand-sanitizer maker 4E Brands to disqualify Judge Marvin Isgur from ruling on a fee dispute involving the company’s law firm, saying no evidence of bias was established, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The creditors of 4E Brands, whose products included Blumen Hand Sanitizer and Assured Hand Sanitizer, are seeking the return of more than $860,000 in legal fees it paid to law firm Jackson Walker since its 2022 bankruptcy. The case was overseen by former Bankruptcy Judge David R. Jones who approved the hiring of Jackson Walker as bankruptcy counsel and also signed off on the fees charged. Jones resigned in October from the bench after his romantic relationship with former Jackson Walker bankruptcy lawyer Elizabeth Freeman became public. Creditors seeking a reversal of the fees had said that, while Freeman didn’t bill hours in the 4E Brands case, she benefited from the fees the company paid the law firm because she was a Jackson Walker equity partner. Judge Isgur took over several of Jones’s cases, including the 4E Brands case, when Jones stepped down.

Creditors of 4E Brands say findings of a survey they commissioned support their case for Judge Marvin Isgur of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston to recuse himself from weighing in on a dispute over legal fees the maker of hand sanitizer paid its law firm, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The creditors are seeking the return to 4E Brands of fees it paid to the Jackson Walker law firm. The creditors say Isgur shouldn’t rule on their request because of his friendship and professional relationship of more than two decades with David R. Jones, a former bankruptcy judge who had been handling the company’s chapter 11 case. Results of the survey were made public late Wednesday after the creditors presented them in a hearing a day earlier before Chief Bankruptcy Judge Eduardo Rodriguez of the Southern District of Texas. At the hearing, Mark P. Jones, a public opinion survey analyst at Rice University, testified he provided 150 adults randomly selected across the Southern District of Texas with basic facts about the circumstances of the fee dispute without naming its parties, and then asked if a judge in the situation could be impartial. Roughly 80% of respondents said it was unlikely a judge could be impartial in the fee matter, said Jones, who isn’t related to the former judge. “They don’t know [Judge Isgur] as a person. Just looking at the objective facts in the case, these objective observers say this appears to be a case where Judge Isgur would not be able to be impartial,” said Jones. San Antonio-based 4E Brands filed for chapter 11 protection in February 2022, following the fallout from a recall of and lawsuits over its methanol-contaminated hand sanitizers.