Christy Comstock
How Judge Comstock decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
Procedural preferences
On a pre-service 28 U.S.C. 1915(e) screening she checks subject-matter jurisdiction first and will recommend dismissal under Rule 12(b)(1) when a diversity plaintiff fails to plead the required amount in controversy; plead your jurisdictional basis with facts.
“Magistrate Judge Comstock conducted a pre-service screening of the Complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2) and determined that the case should be dismissed due to a lack of subject matter jurisdiction.”
Motion outcomes
Counted from classified signed orders only. Percentages are shown only where the sample is large enough to be meaningful; smaller samples are reported as raw counts.
| Summary judgment N = 1 |
Granted: 1 | counts only |
| Social security appeal N = 1 |
Granted: 1 | counts only |
| Eaja attorney fees N = 1 |
Granted: 1 | counts only |
A "1 of 1" is one ruling, not a tendency. Treat small samples as illustrative, not predictive.
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“the R&R (Doc. 34) is ADOPTED IN ITS ENTIRETY, and Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 28) is GRANTED. Judgment will enter concurrently with this opinion.”
“the Report and Recommendation is proper and should be and hereby is ADOPTED IN ITS ENTIRETY. Accordingly ... the decision of the ALJ is REVERSED and this case is REMANDED to the Commissioner for further consideration pursuant to sentence four of 42 U.S.C. § 405(g).”
“The Plaintiff's Motion (Doc. 22) is GRANTED, and the Court hereby orders that Plaintiff is entitled to compensation under the EAJA for 21.5 hours of attorney time at an hourly rate of $206.00 for work performed in 2021, and 3.1 hours of attorney time at an hourly rate of $221.00 for work performed in 2022. The total award is therefore $5,114.10.”
Comstock conducted a 28 U.S.C. 1915(e)(2) pre-service screening and recommended dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction (no adequately pleaded amount in controversy for diversity under 1332(a); Rule 12(b)(1)); Brooks adopted the R&R in its entirety, overruled plaintiff's non-specific objection, denied a futile motion for leave to amend, and dismissed without prejudice. 1915(e) screening (no party motion drove the R&R) -- excluded from stats. R&R-to-adoption latency 25 days. Shows she screens IFP complaints for jurisdiction at the outset.