Katherine B. Forrest

On May 4, 2011, President Barack Obama nominated Forrest to fill a judicial seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York that had been vacated by Judge Jed S. Rakoff, who took senior status at the end of 2010.[8] Forrest was nominated by Obama to the bench in May 2011 on the recommendation of U.S. Senator Charles Schumer of New York.[1] The U.S. Senate confirmed Forrest in a voice vote on October 13, 2011.[9][10] She received her judicial commission on October 17, 2011.[2] Forrest presided over several thousand cases, including more than 100 trials, and, in 2016, became chair of the Grievance Committee for the Southern District. On July 18, 2018, Forrest announced her resignation from the bench, effective September 11, 2018.[11] After resigning from the federal bench, she returned to practice at Cravath, as a partner in the firm’s litigation department.[12]

In 2012, in Hedges v. Obama, Forrest issued a permanent injunction that blocked enforcement of Section 1021 of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which authorized the president to order the military to indefinitely detain any person deemed to be a member of, or to have provided substantially support to, "al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces."[13][14] The plaintiffs in the suit challenged the 2012 NDAA provision as a violation of the First Amendment's right to free speech and free association, as well as the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause.[15] In 2013, a Second Circuit panel unanimously reversed Forrest's ruling, holding that the plaintiffs lacked standing.[14]

In July 2013, Forrest ordered the release of $1.75 billion in Iranian frozen assets held by Bank Markazi (Iran's central bank) in a New York Citibank account to create a fund for families of the victims of the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marines compound in Beirut, Lebanon. Forrest rejected the Iranian government's invocation of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, holding that Iran's conduct fell under an exception to FSIA. Forrest's ruling in Peterson v. Iran was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Bank Markazi v. Peterson (2016), in which the Court held, in a 6-2 ruling, that the families should be allowed to collect the Iranian funds.[16][17]

In In re Aluminum Warehousing Antitrust Litigation (2014), Forrest dismissed an antitrust (price-fixing) suit against Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and Glencore. She held that, although the defendants' actions did affect the aluminum marketplace, the plaintiffs failed to show the defendants had intended to manipulate prices.[18]

In 2015, Forrest presided over a jury trial in United States v. Ulbricht, where Ross William Ulbricht was accused of running the Silk Road online drug marketplace.[19] During the course of the trial, Forrest was doxed on 8chan, where her full mailing address, phone number, and Social Security number were posted on the baphomet subboard.[20] In regards to the defense team's argument that Silk Road enhanced safety by moving illegal drug activity away from real life drug dealing scenarios, Forrest stated "No drug dealer from the Bronx has ever made this argument to the court. It's a privileged argument and it's an argument made by one of the privileged."[21] Forrest sentenced Ulbricht to two life terms, plus an additional 40 years, without the possibility of parole.[22] The Department of Justice then subpoenaed Reason Magazine regarding reactions in the comments section of its article on the sentencing.[23]

From April 2016 to August 2017, Forrest presided over the civil lawsuit Hosseinzadeh v. Klein, in a case where notable YouTubers Ethan and Hila Klein, known on YouTube as h3h3Productions, were accused of copyright infringement by fellow YouTuber Matt Hosseinzadeh. In her decision, Forrest ruled in favor of Ethan and Hila Klein stating that the video in question accused of copyright infringement[24] was "quintessential criticism and comment" of Hosseinzadeh's video and falls under the protection of "fair use." Hosseinzadeh's additional claims of DMCA misrepresentation and defamation were also dismissed.[25][26] Additionally, in her ruling, Forrest made the note that while the Klein video may be classified as a "reaction video," not all reaction videos would fall under the fair use doctrine.[27]

In Ragbir v. Sessions (2018), Forrest ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to halt the deportation of Ravidath (Ravi) Ragbir, an immigrant from Trinidad who had become an activist in the United States.[28][29] Ragbir became a legal permanent resident in 1994 but had been convicted of wire fraud in 2001; it was uncontested that since being release, Ragbir had been rehabilitated and had "lived a life of a redeemed man."[29] Ragbir spent nine years in the U.S. under a "stay of removal," regularly reporting to immigration authorities as required, until he was abruptly arrested in January 2018, unpended his career and separating him from his wife and daughter, both U.S. citizens.[29] In her opinion ordering Ragbir's release, Forrest wrote that "Constitutional principles of due process and the avoidance of unnecessary cruelty here allow and provide for an orderly departure. Petitioner is entitled to the freedom to say goodbye."[29][28] Forrest wrote that this was "the freedom to hug one's spouse and children, the freedom to organize the myriad of human affairs that collect over time"; she criticized practices associated "with regimes we revile as unjust, regimes where those who have long lived in a country may be taken without notice from streets, home, and work. And sent away. We are not that country; and woe be the day that we become that country under a fiction that laws allow it."[29][28] The Second Circuit later continued to stay Ragbir's deportation pending further hearings.[30]

In February 2018, Forrest ruled that Breitbart News, Heavy, Inc., TIME, Yahoo, Vox.com, Gannett Company, Herald Media, The Boston Globe, and New England Sports Network had violated the rights of Justin Goldman by embedding a link to a tweet of an image taken by Goldman of Tom Brady on their respective websites.[31][32] Goldman claimed that he had the exclusive right to display the image and that he had not been contacted for a license for the photo nor that he had publicly released the photo. The photo was first posted to Goldman's Snapchat account.[33]

In April 2018, Forrest sentenced former Mobile Messenger CEO Darcy Wedd to 10 years in prison for his involvement in a fraudulent mobile phone “auto-subscribing” scheme, after a jury convicted him in December 2017. The scheme charged mobile phone users millions of dollars in monthly fees for unsolicited and recurring text messages, without their knowledge or consent.[34][35]

Following her resignation from the federal bench, Forrest returned to practice in the litigation department at Cravath, Swaine & Moore.[36] In 2019, she was named a “Notable Woman in Law” by Crain’s New York Business and profiled as one of Benchmark Litigation’s “Top 250 Women in Litigation”.[37] Forrest is also an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law, where she co-teaches a course on Quantitative Methods and the Law.[38]

Forrest represented the Boston Red Sox in a proposed class action alleging that the Major League Baseball team had undermined fantasy sports contests by covering up sign stealing schemes in a case that was dismissed with prejudice in April 2020.[39]