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AMENDMENT No. 4 PROPOSED TO

                             House Bill NO. 11

                             By Representative(s) Reeves

     AMEND by deleting lines ____________________________ and inserting in lieu thereof the following:

     11-7-30.  When a civil action is filed in circuit, chancery, or county court, the clerk of court shall immediately assign the action to the judge of said court.  If there is more than one judge in the court district, the clerk shall assign the action to a judge in the court district on a blind rotation basis.  No person, including, but not limited to, the attorneys for the parties, the parties, or any judge, shall participate in any manner, or attempt to influence in any manner, the assignment of the action to a particular judge.  If the action is dismissed at any time for any reason and is re-filed in the same court or an action substantially similar to the dismissed action is filed in the same court after dismissal of the first action, the new action shall be immediately assigned by the clerk of the court to the judge to whom the first action was assigned.  No judge other than the judge to whom the action was first assigned shall have any authority to hear or decide any aspect of the action.

     If the judge to whom an action is assigned by the clerk of the court recuses himself from hearing the action, the judge shall not re-assign the case to another judge.  In such event, the judge shall immediately deliver his recusal order to the clerk of court who shall re-assign the action to another judge of said court on a blind rotation basis as provided in this section.  If there is no other judge of the court, the judge shall immediately cause a copy of the recusal order to be forwarded to the clerk of the Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court shall then immediately appoint a special judge to hear the case. 

     It shall be frivolous per se for any attorney, party, judge or any other person to engage in any conduct, other than the timely filing in the action of appropriate pleadings, motions and related papers for public record, calculated or designed in any way to manipulate the filing of any action so as to accomplish the assignment of an action to a particular judge or to attempt to influence the assignment of any action to a particular judge. The court shall impose substantial sanctions against any person found to have engaged in such conduct.