Kristine Anne Gerhard Baker

How Judge Baker rules, drawn from 6 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.

Court
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas
Position
district
Appointed by
Barack Obama (Democratic)
Commissioned
2012-05-08
Education
Saint Louis University (B.A., summa cum laude, 1993); University of Arkansas School of Law (J.D., magna cum laude, 1996)
Signed orders read
6

How Judge Baker decides

Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.

Procedural preferences

When the parties file a joint stipulation of dismissal, denies any pending summary-judgment motion as moot rather than reaching its merits.

“the Court adopts the parties' joint stipulation of dismissal with prejudice (Dkt. No. 25). The Court denies as moot defendant AOIC's motion for summary judgment (Dkt. No.13).”

Will reopen a suppression hearing on reconsideration to take additional testimony and make fresh credibility findings before deciding whether an interview was custodial.

“For the reasons that follow, the Court denies Milton Laws, Jr.’s motion to suppress after reopening the hearing on the motion.”

In design-patent and trade-dress pleading, applies the ordinary-observer test to the actual products and requires specific identification of protectable trade-dress elements and secondary meaning.

“No reasonable person would purchase defendants’ video game believing that they were purchasing plaintiffs’ stun gun.”

Cautions

Grants a defendant's motion for summary judgment where the plaintiff fails to raise a triable issue, dismissing the claims with prejudice.

“the Court grants defendant Arkansas Department of Workforce Services' motion for summary judgment against Plaintiff Lee Reddix (Dkt. No. 10). Mr. Reddix's claims are dismissed with prejudice.”

Enforces a disability plan's administrative-appeal deadline where correspondence merely requests records and refers to a future appeal, dismissing with prejudice once the appeal period has expired.

“Under these circumstances and based on Reindl, the Court determines that Hartford reasonably could have construed the May letters as not providing adequate notice of an appeal or constituting an appeal but instead as mere requests for documents that Mr. Deaton’s ‘lawyer sought to review before determining whether to file an appeal in the future.’”

Signed rulings

A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.

Dunn v. USA
4:23-cv-00428-KGB · 2025-09-23
Summary judgment (defendant) Granted

“USA's motion for summary judgment is granted (Dkt. No. 33). ... Dunn's complaint is dismissed with prejudice (Dkt. No. 2).”

Summary judgment (plaintiff) Denied

“Dunn's motion for summary judgment is denied (Dkt. No. 30).”

Reddix v. Arkansas Department of Workforce Services
2:17-cv-00029-KGB · 2019-03-31
Summary judgment (defendant) Granted

“the Court grants defendant Arkansas Department of Workforce Services' motion for summary judgment against Plaintiff Lee Reddix (Dkt. No. 10). Mr. Reddix's claims are dismissed with prejudice.”

Kackley v. Auto-Owners Insurance Company
4:21-cv-00811-KGB · 2022-08-12
Summary judgment (defendant) Moot / procedural

“the Court adopts the parties' joint stipulation of dismissal with prejudice (Dkt. No. 25). The Court denies as moot defendant AOIC's motion for summary judgment (Dkt. No.13).”

Deaton v. Hartford Life & Accident Insurance Co.
· 2014-09-09
Summary judgment (defendant) Granted

“Because no genuine issue of material fact exists as to the reasonableness of Hartford’s determination that Mr. Deaton failed to exhaust timely his administrative remedies and that the time for doing so has passed, and because Hartford’s termination letter constituted an appealable denial, the Court grants Hartford’s motion and dismisses this action with prejudice.”

P.S. Products, Inc. v. Activision Blizzard, Inc.
· 2014-02-21
Motions to dismiss (defendants) Granted

“For these reasons, defendants’ motion to dismiss is granted (Dkt. No. 24). Plaintiffs’ amended complaint is dismissed without prejudice.”

United States v. Laws
· 2014-02-06
Motion for reconsideration (government) Granted

“The government’s motion for reconsideration of Order granting motion to suppress is granted (Dkt. No. 184).”

Motion to suppress (defendant) Denied

“For the reasons that follow, the Court denies Milton Laws, Jr.’s motion to suppress after reopening the hearing on the motion.”

Caseload & timing

From public federal docket records for this judge.

The reviewed felony cases lasted roughly 1.3 years to more than three years, while the civil matters filed in 2017 took about 1.5 to three years to reach summary judgment. Some later civil cases were transferred or dismissed earlier; these observations do not describe the full docket.

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Ezel grounds your drafting and research in this profile: what has persuaded Judge Baker, and what has not, cited to the signed orders.

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