The 9th Circuit opinion shows that age has not mellowed Judge Real, who was born in 1924 and appointed to the bench in 1966 by President Lyndon Johnson. For much of his long career, the judge has been dogged by controversy and overruled by the 9th Circuit. As the Los Angeles Times reported in 2009, Judge Real’s reversal rate has been as high as 10 times the average for federal judges. The Times found the appeals court removed Real from presiding over remanded cases at least 11 times.
Real was called to testify at a 2006 House Judiciary Committee hearing exploring his alleged misconduct in the handling of a bankruptcy case and related California unlawful detainer action. The House dropped the matter but he was later publicly reprimanded by the 9th Circuit.
Since 2006, according to Westlaw statistics on Judge Real’s record at the 9th Circuit, he has been reversed 87 times. The judge has been affirmed 233 times. His reversal rate in the last 10 years – not counting his 47 partial reversals – is nearly 17 percent. (I calculated the rate by dividing the number of complete reversals by the sum of complete reversals plus complete affirmances.) In 2015, according to the Westlaw report, the judge was reversed 12 times and affirmed 20, an astonishing 37.5 percent reversal rate. Before Wednesday’s decision in the Wijegunaratne case, Judge Real had been reversed in two other cases in 2016, compared to seven affirmances.
This is the judge that recently decided against the state of California and in favor of the Koch Brothers-linked Americans for Propserity on disclosure issues, soon to face a 9th Circuit appeal.