Judge Anne-Leigh Gaylord Moe's standing order in Ballentine v. Meta gave every party two doors and no hallway: swear who is funding the fight, medical liens and foreign money included, or certify that no one is, with dismissal, default, and sanctions four pages in. The case has since crossed the country to San Francisco, on its third judge in five days, and the question followed it.
On March 12, 2026, Judge Anne-Leigh Gaylord Moe entered a four page standing order in the Orlando division of the Middle District of Florida and aimed it at every litigant in the case in front of her. The case was Ballentine v. Meta Platforms, then numbered 6:26-cv-376. The order gave two doors and no hallway: "every party must file either a (1) Verified Disclosure of Third-Party Litigation Funding or (2) a Certification of No Third-Party Litigation Funding." The number riding that docket was $500,000,000, one pro se plaintiff's pleaded compensatory demand, and the cost of silence sat four pages in: denial of relief, dismissal, default, or monetary sanctions. Sixteen weeks later the case sits in San Francisco, on its third judge in five days, and the question the order asked has followed it across the country.
The shift is easy to state in one breath. Before March 12, the money behind the case was private. After it, every party, plaintiff and defendant alike, had ten days to swear who was funding the fight or certify that no one was. Third-party funding opacity, last seen in Burford Capital's fight to veto a Sysco settlement and in New York's consumer funding fee cap, now faces a federal sanctions menu on a live docket. And the order's edge cuts one way in practice. Meta already knows who funds Meta. The record now demands the name of anyone funding Meta's opponents.
The reach of the order is the mechanism. It covers any nonparty "who has funded or arranged to fund some or all of a party's attorney fees and/or expenses related to this action." It reaches medical money: any agreement where treatment is rendered on the understanding that the bill gets paid from the case proceeds must be disclosed the same way as a funder. It reaches overseas: "Disclose whether the Third-Party Funder or any of its corporate parents or affiliates (a) are in any way affiliated with or (b) receive funding of any type from a foreign government or governments." Section VII carries the teeth: "Failure to timely file the disclosure may be a basis on which a motion is denied without prejudice. Additionally, sanctions including dismissal of the action, entry of a default, or monetary sanctions may be entered against a non-compliant party or counsel." Then, on May 27, Judge Moe entered a second standing order in the same case: every filing must certify, under penalty of perjury, whether artificial intelligence was used to prepare it.
The man who drew all this is Marvelle J. Ballentine, and he has no lawyer. His amended complaint alleges that Meta permanently disabled his business accounts on July 4, 2022, under its child safety enforcement policy, that vendor contractors Accenture, TaskUs, and Genpact staffed the final human review, and that similarly situated white users got their accounts restored. He pleads race discrimination under the federal civil rights statutes. Paragraph 178 demands compensatory damages "in an amount not less than $500,000,000." His civil cover sheet wrote $250,000,000 in the demand box. Those are pleaded numbers, one man's numbers, not a jury's. The order does not care. Neither does its sanctions menu. A verified funding disclosure is owed at the same price whether the demand is half a billion dollars or one.
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Meta answered with a venue motion. Judge Moe granted it on June 3, and the case crossed the country to become 4:26-cv-05939 in the Northern District of California, carrying four pending motions to dismiss, one each from Meta, Accenture, TaskUs, and Genpact. Then the San Francisco bench churned. Judge Thompson recused on June 29. Judge Breyer recused on June 30. Judge Rita F. Lin took the case the same day, the third judge in five days. The transfer did not scrub the record. Judge Moe's standing orders rode west inside it, and the question Florida asked under oath does not unask itself in California.
Judge Moe was not writing on an island. Chief Judge Colm Connolly has had a funder disclosure standing order running across the District of Delaware since April 2022. New Jersey's federal district wrote funding disclosure into Local Civil Rule 7.1.1 in 2021. Judge Rodgers ordered it across the 3M earplug MDL in Case Management Order 61. And Lawyers for Civil Justice and the US Chamber's Institute for Legal Reform have asked the federal rules committee for one national disclosure rule in Rules Suggestion 26-CV-8, a filing that cites Judge Moe's standing order by name.
Judge Lin moved on her first full day with the case. Her June 30 order gives the parties three weeks: "By July 22, 2026, the parties shall file a status report advising the Court of what motions remain pending in this action." She is weighing whether to collapse the four dismissal motions into one, writing that the court "is considering requiring Defendants to file a single, consolidated motion to dismiss, to which Plaintiff would file a single opposition." The initial case management conference is set for September 23 in San Francisco.
So the arc closes where it opened, on an order with two doors. A pro se plaintiff filed a race discrimination case in Orlando with half a billion dollars on the pleadings. A Florida judge used that docket to put litigation funding, medical lien money, foreign government money, and AI drafting on the record under oath. Meta moved the fight to its home district, and the record moved with it. The procedural score so far: two standing orders entered, transfer granted, two recusals, four motions to dismiss pending, one status report due. July 22 is the next entry with a date on it. The clock runs.
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