This Mary Floor/Harvey Rice-Chronicle article (related blog post here) reports tha U.S. District Judge Sam Kent of Galveston is taking a four month leave from his bench. Judge Kent, who runs a tight ship, was recently in the news as the judge in the lawsuit that Houston based Landry’s Restaurants, Inc filed and then settled with the holders of most of its bond debt. Interestingly, one of Landry’s attorneys in that case reportedly has advocated forum shopping for certain of his cases in the past. The Chronicle article clearly suggests that Judge Kent’s leave is not voluntary, but there is no suggestion that the leave has anything to do with the Landry’s case or any other case, for that matter. Such a leave is a bit unusual, though, so stay tuned.