William J. Kayatta Jr.
How Judge Kayatta rules, drawn from 52 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
How Judge Kayatta decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
For disability-discrimination and leave-retaliation claims, he requires evidence that the person responsible for the challenged action knew of the protected condition or planned leave.
“The lack of such knowledge precludes any claim of disability discrimination or of FMLA retaliation due to her planned 2016 leave.”
He reads a choice-of-law clause according to its precise scope and will not extend language governing contract construction to statutory rights the clause does not mention.
“It does not otherwise select any state's law as governing the parties' rights and obligations that are created by statute.”
At sentencing, he requires an explanation that permits meaningful review when the court rejects a substantial, preserved mitigation argument.
“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
He favors adjudication on the merits and treats dismissal with prejudice for an isolated lapse as inappropriate when a lesser sanction would address the harm.
“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.”
When an indictment adequately states an offense, he does not use a disputed Rule 12 record to test the sufficiency of the government's eventual trial evidence.
“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.”
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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