Christopher L. Hawkins
How Judge Hawkins rules, drawn from 7 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
How Judge Hawkins decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
A proposed amendment is denied when the new claims would be time-barred or otherwise fail to state a viable claim.
“rendering amendment to the Complaint futile”
Summary judgment is inappropriate when the asserted preclusion doctrine does not eliminate genuine disputes over dischargeability.
“there exist genuine issues of material fact as to the whether a discharge of the Defendant’s claim is appropriate in this case”
Procedural preferences
Professional-retention requests must stay within the statutory authority for estate professionals and address potential adversity to non-debtor parties.
“Section 327(a) does not permit an order authorizing the retention of professionals to represent non-debtor parties”
Cautions
Repeated reliance on fabricated or inaccurate legal authorities can lead to a public reprimand and loss of permission to appear in the case.
“The use of generative artificial intelligence to multiply the proceedings in this case was particularly egregious”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“ORDERED that the Motion is DENIED.”
“ORDERED that the Motion is GRANTED, and this adversary proceeding is DISMISSED.”
“For the reasons set forth above, it is ORDERED that the Motion is DENIED.”
“Accordingly, the Motion for Leave is DENIED.”
“the Motion is GRANTED, and the debt owed by Franklin to Cosmographic under the Consent Judgment is NONDISCHARGEABLE pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(6).”
“ORDERED that the Motion to Reconsider is DENIED.”
The court publicly reprimanded an attorney, revoked her admission in the case, and required remedial distribution and training after repeated inaccurate and fabricated legal citations.
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
The four terminated sampled matters lasted 851 to 1,398 days, with a median of 1,295.5 days. Two newly filed pending matters were included to preserve a current boundary; they had not matured to a groundable outcome.
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