Sharad Harshad Desai
How Judge Desai decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In a prisoner Eighth Amendment medical-care case, evidence that a non-examining medical director overrode a treating specialist's urgent-surgery recommendation in favor of 'conservative management' (which here meant no treatment, leaving a permanent deformity) is enough to defeat summary judgment and reach a jury on deliberate indifference and Monell custom.
“a reasonable jury could conclude that this decision was deliberately indifferent to Plaintiff’s serious medical needs”
Procedural preferences
Treats Rule 702/Daubert as a gatekeeping (not fact-finding) inquiry: an expert's failure to review every medical record, cross-specialty subject matter, and reliance on another expert's report or the plaintiff's self-reported history go to WEIGHT (cross-examination), not admissibility, where the expert has 'sufficient' facts and relevant experience.
“Rule 702 requires only that Dr. Steingart’s opinions be based on “sufficient”—not exhaustive—“facts and data.””
On Social Security appeals, even where the agency concedes ALJ error, he remands for further proceedings rather than ordering immediate benefits (credit-as-true) when the error is a failure to properly explain reasoning and outstanding issues remain.
“The Court determines in its discretion to remand for further proceedings and not apply the credit-as-true rule.”
Cautions
Cites Rule 11 and will admonish a party (including pro se) for relying on a non-existent / fabricated case citation. Do not cite hallucinated or unverified authority.
“the contrary authority Gustafson cites is a non-existent case”
Applies the District of Arizona's reconsideration standard strictly: a motion that is untimely (>14 days), merely rehashes prior arguments, or fails to show 'manifest error' ('dead wrong') will be denied.
“reconsideration is “an extraordinary remedy that is available only in highly unusual circumstances.””
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 = 2 |
Granted in part: 1Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Motions to dismiss N = 1 |
Granted: 1 | counts only |
| Motion for reconsideration N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Social security appeal N = 1 |
Granted in part: 1 | counts only |
| Motion to amend scheduling order N = 1 |
Granted in part: 1 | counts only |
| Motion in limine N = 1 |
Denied: 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.
“Defendant Gann’s Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 185) is granted. Defendant Gann is dismissed from this action without prejudice.”
“Defendants NaphCare and Neiswonger’s Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 146) is denied.”
“Defendants Centurion, Pippins, Stewart, and Tripp’s Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 198) is granted in part and denied in part ... The motion is granted as to Defendants Pippins and Tripp, and Defendants Pippins and Tripp are dismissed from this action with prejudice. (b) The Motion is otherwise denied.”
“IT IS ORDERED that Gustafson’s motion for reconsideration (Doc. 56) is denied.”
“IT IS ORDERED that the decision of the ALJ is vacated and remanded for further administrative proceedings. ... The Court determines in its discretion to remand for further proceedings and not apply the credit-as-true rule.”
“IT IS ORDERED granting in part the Motion (Doc. 28). Defendant may have until April 25, 2025 to serve its expert disclosures under Federal Rule of Evidence 26(a)(2)(B).”
“Pending before the Court is Defendant Safeway Inc.’s (“Safeway”) motion to exclude the opinions of Plaintiff Nolan Gorney’s expert, Dr. Michael Steingart. (Doc. 32.) For the following reasons, Safeway’s motion is denied.”
Pro se prisoner-condition case. Desai ADOPTED the magistrate's R&R (no objections filed; reviewed without de novo per Reyna-Tapia) dismissing the Second Amended Complaint WITHOUT prejudice under Rule 41(b) for failure to comply with court orders / failure to prosecute (plaintiff never returned the service packet or responded to an order to show cause). Read from docket full text (get_recap_document 443840599). No party motion -> excluded_from_stats; recorded for the procedural-disposition pattern (this judge will dismiss for FTP after an OSC, but without prejudice).
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median motion-to-ruling time: 145 days (N = 5).
Desai's current docket is dominated by a 2026 alien-detainee 28:2241 habeas-corpus SURGE (mostly pending, referred to magistrate judges), plus Social Security appeals, prisoner civil rights (42:1983), employment discrimination, insurance/contract and personal-injury removals, and patent. Because assigned_judge reflects CURRENT assignment, his enumeration includes many cases filed (and some terminated) before his 2025-01-07 commission that were reassigned to him -- including a 2014 criminal case terminated in 2017 (a pure current-assignment artifact).