Bower v. BDO USA LLP, 4:16-cv-02649

Plaintiff Hang L. Bower sued her former employer, BDO USA, LLP, alleging race discrimination and retaliation under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and claiming constructive discharge on January 31, 2014.
After the alleged discharge, Bower filed an EEOC charge; the EEOC issued an administrative subpoena to BDO and later sought enforcement in a separate action in the Southern District of Texas.
The EEOC enforcement action was assigned to Judge Sim Lake and Magistrate Judge Nancy Johnson; the EEOC sought to compel production of documents BDO had withheld as privileged.
Bower and BDO filed a joint motion in this § 1981 suit asking the Court to reassign the present case to Judge Sim Lake, citing overlapping issues and factual familiarity between the two matters.
The parties provided no legal authority supporting reassignment on the basis of relatedness or judge familiarity; the earlier EEOC case was on appeal at the time, limiting Judge Lake’s ability to act on consolidation requests.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether this case should be reassigned to Judge Sim Lake because it is related to the earlier-filed EEOC enforcement action	Cases are related and Judge Lake is familiar with relevant facts; therefore reassignment to Judge Lake is appropriate	Same (the motion was joint)	Denied — court refused to reassign solely for relatedness/familiarity; no legal basis cited to support reassignment
Whether consolidation or reassignment should be pursued instead	Parties implied consolidation would be appropriate given overlap	Same	Court advised proper route is a motion to consolidate filed in the earlier EEOC case per Local Rule 7.6; noted consolidation cannot be acted on while that case is on appeal

None — the opinion does not rely on any officially reported judicial opinions; it cites only an unreported district decision reference and statutory provisions.