Andrea K. Bouressa

Judge Bouressa's Court Procedures (First Business Court Division, rev. Apr. 1, 2026) (TOPICs reg. doc 2903)

Judge Bouressa's procedures for cases assigned to her in the First Division (supplementing the court's Local Rules): email as the preferred court channel (all parties copied except true ex parte matters); her scheduling-order form with competing-order submissions when agreement fails, trial dates set by the court (agreed answer-date extensions do not delay trial; a case may be called on its date or within 14 days after); continuances heavily disfavored; written-discovery limits per the TRCP, BCLR, her procedures, and filed Rule 11 agreements; discovery-control-plan/protective-order/ESI settings with competing proposals e-filed in advance; motions to compel must attach the request and response and group requests by subject or objection; attorney's fees may be awarded for discovery abuse "even upon the first instance"; no-setting-needed classes (substitute service, default judgment, pro hac vice, unopposed non-continuance motions) with concurrent proposed orders; opposed motions require movant-obtained settings after conferring on dates; in-person oral hearings by default with evidentiary notices, specific-conflict availability statements, citation readiness, and at least four hard copies of demonstratives; submission settings by agreement; trials — older cases first, hour-based time limits fixed at pretrial, agreed or competing judgments in Word within 14 days of verdict, proposed findings within 10 days of a timely request; and settlement mechanics — a signed non-suit/agreed dismissal, agreed judgment, or all-party notice (with jury waiver where demanded) to clear a setting, and a 45-day dismissal-with-prejudice presumption after announced settlements. Her scheduling-order template adds conferral duties 14 days before pretrial, pre-marked exhibit and Word jury-charge delivery, joinder and arbitration-motion deadlines, staged expert designations, and the mediation default — parties who fail to mediate by the deadline "will be limited to 3 hours of trial time in a jury trial or 2 hours of trial time in a bench trial."