Uh, Judge, Sign Your Own Court Orders

The Columbus Dispatch is reporting the story of the Delaware County Common Pleas Domestic Relations judge instructed by the Appellate Court to pull the files on 700 matters assigned to him over the last 5 years where he had his "magistrate" sign the Judge's name to various court orders.  Seems like a no-brainer.  But get this Judge Krueger was once elected by "his peers" as president of the Ohio Common Pleas Judge's Association, you'd think he knew better.

Here's an excerpt from Randy Ludlow's story for the Dispatch:

"Delaware County Common Pleas Judge Everett H. Krueger is likely to soon grow weary of signing his name.  Court workers are scouring divorce and dissolution cases from the past five years to locate up to 700 where Krueger did not sign the final paperwork.  Krueger had allowed a magistrate to sign his name to agreed entries on dissolutions and divorces in the interest of expediting cases. But an appeals court has ruled that doesn't count. A judge must sign the entries.

'No divorces are invalid,' Krueger said yesterday. 'Just to be safe, I'm going through all the cases and signing all the agreed entries.'

The judge said he allowed magistrates to sign off on cases when the parties came to court with final agreements on property settlements and child custody and support 'so they didn't have to wait around for me to review anything.'

However, the Fifth District Court of Appeals ruled on May 26 that court rules require judges to sign judgments and that such authority cannot be delegated to magistrates."
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So Ohio pays its Common Pleas judges what $100K + a year which I'm guess is pretty good change in about Delaware County, Ohio--and, the Judge delegates his signatory authority to his magistrate? 

Actually, when I was a young lawyer many, many years ago there was a divorce judge in OurTown who did precisely the same thing, but worse.  This Lazy (and bad) judge routinely let his bailiff rule on and sign the Judge's name to various matters.  Fantastically outrageous.