Gray M. Borden
How Judge Borden rules, drawn from 7 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
Judge Borden no longer sits on this court. This profile is preserved as a historical record of how they ruled here.
About Judge Borden
Gray M. Borden served as a United States Magistrate Judge for the Middle District of Alabama from 2015 to 2019 before joining the magistrate bench in the Northern District of Alabama. He graduated from Washington and Lee University and the University of Alabama School of Law. Earlier in his career, he clerked for a federal judge, practiced law, and served as an Assistant United States Attorney.
How Judge Borden decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In Social Security review, a material medical-opinion limitation must be addressed expressly. He remanded where the administrative law judge assigned significant weight to a physician but gave no reason for omitting the physician's stooping limitation, because supplying a harmless-error rationale would require the reviewing court to reweigh evidence.
“because the ALJ did not provide an explanation, the court cannot undertake a meaningful review of the ALJ’s decision not to include or account for this limitation, even though Dr. Lipscomb’s opinion was assigned ‘significant weight.’”
On employment-discrimination summary judgment, proposed comparators must be genuinely similar in the quantity and quality of misconduct, and the employer must have known of the comparator conduct. Materially different conduct did not support an inference of age discrimination.
“because Blackmon’s misconduct is materially different in quantity and quality from that of Smith and Distasio—the only two purported comparators—Blackmon has failed to establish the fourth element of her prima facie case”
Procedural preferences
In Laird v. Aetna Life Insurance Co., Borden denied two dismissal motions as moot after an amended complaint was docketed and allowed the defendants to refile against the new pleading.
“defs' 4 and 9 MOTIONS TO DISMISS are DENIED as MOOT with LEAVE TO REFILE following the docketing of plf's amended complaint.”
In Laird v. Aetna Life Insurance Co., Borden granted a protective-order motion in part and set a deadline for dispositive motions.
“ORDER granting in part and denying in part 87 Joint MOTION for Protective Order ... Dispositive motions shall be filed no later than 4/18/2018”
Cautions
An ERISA statutory-penalty claim requires an alleged request for the information at issue. A general allegation that plan documents were not furnished did not state that claim where neither the participant nor beneficiary was alleged to have requested them.
“Section 1132(c)(1)(B) unambiguously requires a ‘request for any information’ for the statutory penalty to be appropriate.”
In Merritt v. Berryhill, Borden reversed and remanded a benefits decision because the administrative law judge gave a physician’s opinion significant weight without explaining the omission of a stated functional limit; filling the gap would have required speculation and reweighing.
“to answer these questions would require the court to speculate and to reweigh evidence, and it is not the purview of the court to assume that errors by the ALJ would not result in a different outcome.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“The Motion to Dismiss for Plaintiff’s Failure to State a Claim filed by AECOM and Sasser (Doc. 34) is DENIED at to Count I and GRANTED as to Count II”
“The Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings filed by Aetna (Doc. 47) is DENIED as to Count I and GRANTED as to Count II.”
“Based on the forgoing, it is ORDERED that the decision of the Commissioner is AFFIRMED.”
“Accordingly, it is ORDERED that the decision of the Commissioner is REVERSED and REMANDED for the Commissioner to conduct further proceedings consistent with this opinion, to include further consideration of Dr. Lipscomb’s opinions provided in the Medical Source Statement.”
“It is the ORDERED that the decision of the Commissioner is AFFIRMED”
“It is therefore ORDERED that the decision of the Commissioner denying benefits is REVERSED and this matter REMANDED to the Administrative Law Judge for further proceedings.”
“the court finds that the decision of the Commissioner is due to be and hereby is AFFIRMED.”
“For the reasons set forth above, it is ORDERED that Defendant L-3 Army Sustainment LLC’s motion for summary judgment (Doc. 41) is GRANTED.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
The sampled consent docket includes Social Security disability appeals, ERISA benefits disputes, employment discrimination, and civil-rights cases.
A historical record
Judge Borden no longer sits on this court. This profile stays available as a record of how they ruled here. If you're preparing for a matter, start from the court's current bench.