The Delaware Court of Chancery has started using a new procedure to handle routine civil actions.
Under this new procedure, the court has created a new docket called the “Routine Unassigned Action” or “RUA” docket to be taken up by Magistrate Judges on a rotating basis.
Matters suitable for the docket include will, trust, estate, and property actions that can be resolved with a single hearing.
The court is now sending to the RUA docket petitions: for partition; to sell real property to pay debts of an estate; for decree of distribution; for caveat against or review of a will; to probate a copy of a will; to quiet title; and to reform a mortgage or deed.
The court is also assigning to the RUA docket placeholder books-and-records actions, which Magistrate Judges monitor until the need for case assignment arises.
The 2025 calendar for RUA hearings is available on the court’s website and the 2026 calendars will be available soon.
“This streamlined approach has already proven a success,” said Senior Magistrate Selena E. Molina. “Since January 2025, we have assigned over 90 routine cases to the RUA docket and 30 have already been fully resolved on the merits. Prompt resolution serves our litigants, and the new routinized process helps minimize the burden on our hardworking Magistrate Judges,” she said.
Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick said that “the RUA docket is one of many innovations that Senior Magistrate Judge Molina has proposed to improve our court’s administration of justice. It is working, and I am grateful for her leadership.”
Changes aimed at dealing the court's workload of complex cases led to changes announced earlier including an automated case assignment system sometimes known as "wheel spin."
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