Robert Toombs Dawson
How Judge Dawson decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
Will not weigh credibility or resolve a disputed intent question at summary judgment, even where the movant calls its explanation the 'only logical' one.
“For the Court to determine the veracity of Mancilla's statements ... would require the Court to judge the evidence and its weight, which is an impermissible step at summary judgment.”
Procedural preferences
Reviews magistrate R&Rs de novo when a party files written objections (clear-error/adopt-in-toto only when unopposed), and will adopt an R&R that splits a multi-claim MSJ rather than granting it wholesale.
“The court has reviewed this case de novo and, being well and sufficiently advised, finds as follows: The report and recommendation is proper and should be and hereby is adopted in its entirety.”
Cautions
Applies qualified immunity rigorously in employment/Section 1983 suits: a lateral transfer keeping the same pay and title is not a constructive discharge, and absent a clearly-established violation the individual defendants get immunity.
“Viewing these allegations in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, the Court cannot conclude that Plaintiff was constructively discharged from his employment.”
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 = 5 |
Granted: 2Granted in part: 1Denied: 2 | 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.
“Defendants' motion for summary judgment (Doc. 19) is GRANTED and this case is DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE.”
“For the reasons stated above, Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment is DENIED.”
“the defendants' motion for summary judgment (Doc. 23) is denied.”
“For the reasons stated, Defendants' motion for summary judgment should be and hereby is GRANTED. Accordingly, Plaintiff's claims pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 & 1985 and for declaratory relief are DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE.”
“Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 32) is GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART. The motion is GRANTED as to Plaintiff's claims that he was provided an inadequate diet and his meals were served in an unsanitary environment. The motion is DENIED with respect to Plaintiff's claim that his First Amendment rights were violated when he was denied access to newspapers or other media sources containing news coverage.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
10 terminated dockets from 2021-2022. Non-random sample. Of the contested cases whose entry timelines were pulled, several resolved by settlement / stipulated dismissal (Cooper Land Development, Steed, Williams v. Hartford) rather than a merits motion ruling, and Ford v. Berry Global's motion-to-dismiss order text was not available in docket, so contested-motion latency could not be grounded for those. The one grounded dispositive disposition is the Nunnelee R&R adoption (see docket_motions).