according to Feld, that specific court has a reputation for being a "pro-industry anti-regulatory bunch of judicial activists who don't give a squat about actual case law."

said by dnoyeB :

So essentially you are completely contradicting his point. Saying that the DC court is not activist and that he is upset because he would rather the case be in an activist court. Just one that is activist in support of his beliefs?

said by TK Junk Mail :

While I agree with Feld that Comcast caught somewhat of a break by getting the DC Circuit, I disagree with his characterization of the court as activist. It is actually one of the more non-activist courts in the country. It is also one of the most experienced in cases involving regulatory agencies and that is why it was probably awarded this case.

I suspect Feld is upset because it doesn't "Make Law" on the fly and make decisions based on some nebulous theory of social activism to guide its decisions like the San Fran court does.

said by Bill Dollar :

Actually, the "experience" that the DC court may or may not have had nothing to do with the choice to move the case to the DC circuit. The PMJL just generated (in this case 4) random numbers, and DC's number came up.

The fact that TK Junk Mail does not know how this process works makes it clear that his opinion of the DC circuit being "non-activist" is just more pro-industry BS.

The most important procedural device created for defendants in multijurisdictional litigation in the past
fifty years is the multidistrict litigation (MDL) process, including the formation of the Judicial Panel on
Multidistrict Litigation (the JPML, or MDL Panel).4 The JPML, made up of seven federal judges
designated by the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, has the power to transfer cases pending in
federal district courts across the country to one federal court for all pretrial proceedings.

Believe it or not, factors like airline schedules and the cost
of hotels may be a key factor in the MDL Panel’s decision to transfer the cases to a particular location.
Other factors that the MDL Panel may consider include the location of witnesses and documents, the
residence of the parties, the expertise or familiarity of a particular district court with the subject matter,
the locations of the pending actions (including whether there are a majority of pending actions in one
district court), the location of the first filed matter, the congestion on the dockets of the various possible
courts, and the location of the alleged misconduct.

said by Harold Feld (emphasis mine) from »www.wetmachine.com/totsf/item/1314 :

Obviously I would prefer to be elsewhere for the same reason Comcast wants to be there (despite being actually located in the Third Circuit), i.e. the D.C. Circuit's reputation as being a pro-industry anti-regulatory bunch of judicial activists who don't give a squat about actual case law. Still, since some of our strongest precedent is from the D.C. Circuit, and the D.C. Circuit has surprised Comcast in the past, I am not exactly weeping in despair here.