Lawyers for a defendant in a lawsuit questioned in a court filing whether they could receive impartial treatment from Butler County's judges.

In May, Lisa Swinto, the daughter of state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-12th, sued her father's primary election challenger, Scott Timko, for what she called false and defamatory advertisements from Timko's failed election run in the June primary.

The case was assigned to Judge S. Michael Yeager, but Timko's lawyers recently asked Yeager and all the other Butler County Common Pleas judges to recuse themselves from the case.

The lawyers, Timothy Wojton and John Schaffranek, write that they made the request after realizing that Yeager and the other judges recused themselves from presiding over criminal cases that Metcalfe's lawyer, Douglas Linn, faced in the past. Linn operates a legal practice out of Cranberry Township.

“At the end of the day, let's see who wins. And see who holds their head up high. That's what I measure my prowess of as a lawyer or lack thereof. I have a sense of ethics,” Linn said, while also noting that he is not a defendant in this lawsuit.

Yeager responded to the request by recusing himself. Judge William Shaffer, as the acting administrative judge, denied the motion for a recusal of all the judges and reassigned the case to Judge Timothy McCune.

In the recusal request, Timko's lawyers note that Linn faced criminal charges from a 2014 incident and another criminal case in 2017. They note that in the 2014 case, a visiting judge was assigned to the case after it initially was assigned to McCune. In the 2017 case, a visiting judge was assigned after Butler County's judges, including Yeager, recused themselves from that case.

They also note that the judges never gave a reason why they recused themselves from the cases. Yeager declined to comment.

“It could appear to a reasonable observer that something about the relationship between Attorney Linn and judges of this Honorable Court” resulted in the decision to recuse themselves, Timko's lawyers write. With no explanation from the judges, the lawyers reason that it “is sufficient to indicate that said judges had cause to be concerned that their sitting on matters in which Attorney Linn was a defendant” are “problematic” and they question whether they “can receive impartial treatment from any Butler County judge in this matter.”

In the lawsuit, Swinto, who lives in Florida, asks for a judgment in her favor and for compensation in excess of $35,000 over a pamphlet that was distributed as part of Timko's efforts to challenge Metcalfe in the recent primary. Timko previously said that he thinks the lawsuit has no merit.