Elizabeth Lee Branch
How Judge Branch rules, drawn from 47 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
How Judge Branch decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
She treats Congress's placement of a requirement in one subsection and omission from an adjacent subsection as a reason not to add the missing limitation judicially.
“The legal question on appeal boils down to whether a ‘lack-of-knowledge’ requirement that is explicitly contained in one subsection of the bankruptcy statute, 11 U.S.C. § 727(d)(1), can be read into the adjacent subsection of the same statute, 11 U.S.C. § 727(d)(2), thereby barring revocation.”
She applies the operative regulatory text and declines to add a recordkeeping prerequisite unsupported by binding authority.
“Pointing to no binding authority, the Employees ask this Court to ignore the plain text of the regulations and read an additional recordkeeping requirement into the FLSA’s already extensive and burdensome requirements.”
Administrative implementation must remain within the authority Congress granted; an agency may not add substantive conditions that alter the statutory line.
“Agencies have only those powers given to them by Congress, and ‘enabling legislation’ is generally not an ‘open book to which the agency [may] add pages and change the plot line.’”
In Zafirov, the court focused on whether a relator holds a continuing legal position and rejected the Appointments Clause challenge on that threshold ground. It left other Article II challenges for remand.
“Because we conclude that relators do not occupy a continuing position, we hold that relators are not officers of the United States subject to the Appointments Clause.”
Procedural preferences
She treats mootness as a continuing jurisdictional requirement and vacates prior merits rulings when intervening changes eliminate any meaningful relief.
“In light of the changes to Florida’s voter re-enfranchisement system since this case began, we no longer have the ability to accord Hand meaningful relief from the former system which he challenged.”
She ordinarily declines to consider a legal theory first presented on appeal, while separately checking whether any alleged error would have mattered.
“First, we conclude that Flowers failed to raise this legal issue below, and we decline to consider it for the first time on appeal.”
In Delta, the court required the agency to explain why it used a narrower market analysis and imposed an approval condition it had not imposed in similar cases.
“Because DOT did not treat like cases alike when it held the petitioners and the U.S.-Japan joint venture applicants to different standards for approval, the final order was arbitrary and capricious.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“Because we disagree, we affirm.”
“We therefore grant the petition and remand to the BIA to determine the full scope of the IJ's inquiry into voluntariness, as set forth in more detail below.”
“For the following reasons, we affirm the bankruptcy court's decision.”
“We decline to rewrite the statute and thus affirm the district court.”
“For the following reasons, we vacate and remand for further proceedings.”
“Accordingly, we dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.”
“We therefore hold that this case is moot. ... This case is hereby REMANDED with instructions to DISMISS for mootness.”
“Because we conclude that the sentence-appeal waiver is unambiguous and was made knowingly and voluntarily, we GRANT the government's motion to dismiss.”
“We find that McGroarty's suit is time barred and affirm the district court's dismissal of McGroarty's complaint.”
“Because we agree with the district court that Lucoff expressly consented to receive Navient and SAC's calls, we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment to Navient and SAC.”
“Accordingly, we vacate Garcon's sentence and remand for resentencing. VACATED AND REMANDED.”
“Accordingly, we affirm the district court's decision to dismiss the Plaintiffs' constitutional claims.”
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