The Plaintiff brought an urgent motion for the judge's recusal based on a reasonable apprehension of bias, alleging predisposition against the Plaintiff and/or her counsel.
This motion followed a mistrial declared due to counsel's conduct (displaying an image of Charles Manson to the jury while a witness testified).
The Plaintiff also sought to have the matter remitted for a new trial before a new judge, which the court noted was superfluous as it was already precluded from hearing the new trial.
The court addressed the recusal motion specifically concerning the outstanding costs issue from the aborted proceeding.
The court dismissed the motion, finding no substantial and serious grounds to support an allegation of a reasonable apprehension of bias, and awarded costs to the Defendant on a substantial indemnity basis, noting the motion was brought with the sole purpose of avoiding a costs decision.
