Gerald Bard Tjoflat
How Judge Tjoflat rules, drawn from 29 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
How Judge Tjoflat decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
Under the Federal Arbitration Act, he focuses on whether the arbitrator engaged with the contract and the parties’ intent, rather than whether the resulting interpretation was correct.
“Engaging as he did with the contract’s language and the parties’ intent, the arbitrator did not ‘stray[] from his delegated task of interpreting a contract,’”
In copyright cases, he filters ideas and other unprotectable material out of the substantial-similarity comparison and concentrates on original expression.
“Accordingly, we must apply the substantial similarity test to only those elements of the copyrighted work that are actually subject to copyright protection—that is, elements of original expression in the copyrighted work.”
When reviewing an agency decision, he requires enough engagement with the record’s most relevant evidence to permit meaningful appellate review.
“To effectively conduct our review, we must be left with the conviction, based on the record before us, that the Board has considered and reasoned through the most relevant evidence of the case.”
Procedural preferences
Before imposing inherent-power sanctions on counsel, he requires fair notice of the sanctionable conduct and an opportunity to respond.
“When the individual being sanctioned is an attorney before the court, as is the situation here, complying with the mandates of due process means that the attorney must, first, be afforded ‘fair notice that [her] conduct may warrant sanctions and the reasons why,’ and, second, ‘be given an opportunity to respond, orally or in writing, to the invocation of such sanctions and to justify [her] actions.’”
He reads Rule 41(a)(1) to permit voluntary dismissal of an entire action, not a single remaining claim, so an invalid claim-only stipulation does not end the court’s jurisdiction.
“Rule 41(a)(1), according to its plain text, permits voluntary dismissals only of entire ‘actions,’ not claims.”
In Chun, the court required both an explicit same-sentence statement and substantive reasonableness before treating a possible guideline error as harmless.
“In sum, we conclude that the District Court would have im- posed the same sentence regardless of any error in calculating the Guidelines range and that the resulting sentences were substan- tively reasonable.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“The district court has again confirmed the partial award, and this time we affirm.”
“Finding this claim without merit under plain error review, we affirm Fontenot's conviction.”
“The district court granted the motion for summary judgment and dismissed Baby Buddies's claims. Baby Buddies appeals that judgment, and we affirm.”
“The decision is not sustainable. We accordingly vacate the decision and instruct the District Court on receipt of our mandate to amend its EAJA order to provide for the payment of attorney's fees of $5,000.”
“Under the highly deferential standard of 10(a)(4), the arbitrator did not exceed his authority in his issuance either of the clause construction award or of the class determination award. For the forgoing reasons, the opinion of the District Court is AFFIRMED.”
“The District Court ... granted the motion and dismissed the case. The Plaintiffs now appeal. For the reasons outlined below, we affirm in part and reverse in part.”
“We conclude that the District Court properly denied the officers qualified immunity for entering the owner's residence without a warrant. The court erred, though, in denying the officers' motions to dismiss the owner's claim for unlawful arrest.”
“The Magistrate Judge granted the motion for reconsideration and denied Cummings's motion for a new trial. Cummings appeals the decision. We affirm.”
“Accordingly, the District Court's denial of Crum & Forster and Hartford's Rule 60(b) motion is REVERSED. The District Court's orders ... are hereby VACATED. REVERSED AND VACATED”
“We thus reverse the District Court's order granting partial summary judgment on the binding effect of the verdict in the Circuit Court's breach-of-contract case, and hold that the parties must again litigate statutory damages.”
“As the Board did not appropriately determine that Gordon was convicted of an aggravated felony, we grant Gordon's petition and reject the Board's finding of removability. PETITION GRANTED.”
“Before us is the District Court's dismissal of Antony Turbeville's complaint against the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (‘FINRA’) and its denial of Turbeville's motion to remand the case to Florida state court. We affirm both.”
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