William J. Kayatta Jr.
How Judge Kayatta rules, drawn from 62 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
About Judge Kayatta
William Joseph Kayatta, Jr. is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Appointed by President Barack Obama, Judge Kayatta received a commission on February 14, 2013. Judge Kayatta assumed senior status on October 31, 2024.
Judge Kayatta's practices and standing orders
The court's website lists no individual practices or standing orders of Judge Kayatta's own (checked October 11, 2026), so the court's local rules and general orders are the place to look (court page ↗).
Standing orders for every case in this court
Orders the court applies to all of its cases, whichever judge has them, as published on the court's website (checked October 11, 2026).
How Judge Kayatta decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In O’Rourke v. Tiffany and Company, Kayatta rejected the employee’s disability discrimination and leave retaliation claims because she had not shown that the decisionmaker knew of her condition or planned 2016 leave.
“The lack of such knowledge precludes any claim of disability discrimination or of FMLA retaliation due to her planned 2016 leave.”
In Kleiner v. Cengage Learning Holdings, Kayatta read a New York choice-of-law clause as governing contract construction without foreclosing a Massachusetts statutory claim, and reversed the dismissal for further proceedings.
“It does not otherwise select any state's law as governing the parties' rights and obligations that are created by statute.”
In United States v. Flores-Nater, Kayatta vacated the sentence because the district court had not explained whether or why it rejected the defendant’s preserved argument about his age at the time of the offense.
“As a result, we conclude that the district court abused its discretion and committed procedural error by failing to explain at all whether and why it rejected Flores-Nater's argument concerning his age at the time of the offense.”
Procedural preferences
In Keane v. HSBC Bank USA, N.A., he held that dismissing a foreclosure suit with prejudice for counsel's single missed hearing was too harsh where a lesser sanction could address the lapse, and reversed the denial of relief from dismissal.
“Faced with an innocent and undisputed reason for counsel's absence, the district court should have concluded that while some sanction might have been appropriate, dismissal with prejudice was too harsh given the circumstances.”
In United States v. Rodriguez-Rivera, Kayatta's opinion reversed a pretrial dismissal of aggravated-identity-theft counts. The district court had tested the sufficiency of the government's anticipated evidence on a disputed Rule 12(b) record even though the indictment adequately stated the offense.
“That ruling presumes that a Rule 12(b) motion provides an occasion to force the government to defend the sufficiency of its evidence to be marshalled in support of proving the charged offense. It does not.”
In his Rivera-Medrano separate writing, Kayatta agreed with remand but opposed directing the immigration board to give controlling weight to one report.
“I therefore concur that the BIA ruling need be vacated and remanded for further consideration of the motion to remand, but I dissent from the broader mandate requiring the BIA to assign controlling weight to the Knowlton report in deciding what an IJ is likely to do.”
Cautions
In his Reardon dissent, Kayatta would have upheld a supervised-release restriction on self-employment because it closely related to the defendant’s repeated fraud through business ventures.
“I would find that the district court did not abuse its ample discretion in adopting a supervised release condition that closely corresponded to the nature of Reardon's crime -- repeated fraud motivated by a history of failed business ventures.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“Finding no error, we affirm.”
“The judgment of the district court, affirming the order of the bankruptcy court, is affirmed.”
“Finding no proper basis upon which to disregard the force and logic of our holdings in Lawrence and Cruz-Bucheli, we dismiss Holder's petition for review.”
“For the foregoing reasons, we affirm.”
“The district court acted well within its discretion in dismissing the instant case ... Affirmed.”
“For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court's denial of Dent's motion to suppress.”
“We therefore affirm the dismissal of IBW's complaint for failure to meet the amount-in-controversy requirement for diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1332.”
“The district court's denial of Keane's motion to vacate the prior order dismissing his case is reversed, the order dismissing the case is vacated, and the case is remanded to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
“Because Marte-de la Cruz waived his right to appeal as part of his plea agreement, we dismiss his appeal.”
“Accordingly, finding no clear error, we affirm the district court.”
“Finding no error, we affirm the judgment of the district court.”
“Because we agree with the latter argument, we need not consider the former, and we reverse the order of dismissal.”
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