Now 86, Judge Weinstein is in his 40th year on the United States District Court in Brooklyn, where his ability to turn out decisions that only a plaintiff could love seems to increase with each passing year. He once gave the green light for a once-and-for-all lawsuit that would include every American man and woman who ever smoked a cigarette. And he has also done his best to allow victims of shooting crimes to sue gun makers for negligent marketing.

It turns out that there is quite a story, which we played on yesterday’s front page, about why this judge is able to rankle us so frequently. It’s because Judge Weinstein has a stranglehold on gun and tobacco cases in New York City, which means he’s issuing a disproportionate number of the decisions affecting two of this country’s most controversial — some would say venerable — industries.

An administrative shortcut that lands similar cases before the same judge has given him control over entire industries that is unprecedented for a single federal judge. At issue is what is known as the related case rule, by which cases against oft-sued defendants are routinely steered towards one judge. The logic is judicial economy: there’s no need to ask a dozen different judges to become experts in the minutiae of evidentiary matters.

In respect of tobacco and guns, this rule has resulted in about 20 cases — each one more outlandish than the previous — ending up before Judge Weinstein since the mid-1990s. Plaintiffs know of this red carpet leading straight to Judge Weinstein’s courtroom and have left it well-trod over the years.

When asked by our Joseph Goldstein, how so many big cases ended up with him, Judge Weinstein responded, “I’m lucky.” Well, as President Clinton might say, it depends on what the meaning of “lucky” is. On the one hand, we wouldn’t go so far as to say the whole set up is unconstitutional. On the other hand, if at any point in our history Congress had thought that it was a good thing to divide the court system so that jurisdiction over specific industries was vested in a single judge for his lifetime, we would have heard about it.