Peter Joseph Phipps
How Judge Phipps rules, drawn from 34 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
About Judge Phipps
Peter Joseph Phipps is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Appointed by President Donald J. Trump, Judge Phipps received a commission on July 17, 2019. Judge Phipps previously served on the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, commissioned there on October 17, 2018.
Judge Phipps's practices and standing orders
The court's website lists no individual practices or standing orders of Judge Phipps'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).
- Third Circuit Motions Practice ↗
- Motions to Exceed the Page or Word Limitations ↗
- Motions for Extensions of Time and Clarification of L.A.R. 110 ↗
- Vacating Option B for Filing of an Appendix ↗
- Reduced Number of Copies of Briefs Required ↗
- Stays in Immigration Cases ↗
- Submission of Audio and Video Files ↗
How Judge Phipps decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In United States v. Weiss, he used the ordinary, contemporary meaning of undefined statutory terms.
“Without a controlling statutory definition, those terms take on their 'ordinary, contemporary, common meaning.'”
In Guy Gentile’s challenge to an agency investigation, he concluded that the decision to investigate was committed to agency discretion because courts lacked manageable standards for reviewing it.
“And without judicially manageable standards to evaluate those considerations, an agency decision to investigate is similarly committed to agency discretion by law.”
In United States v. Aleman-Lozano, he rejected the facial challenge without deciding whether every nonimmigrant visa holder belongs to “the people” under the Second Amendment.
“That conclusion is fatal to Aleman-Lozano’s facial challenge. It is therefore unnecessary for the resolution of this case to broadly assume that each and every nonimmigrant visa holder is part of ‘the people.’”
Procedural preferences
In Fernando Saint-Jean’s appeal, he found that the timing of an amended complaint prevented the qualified-immunity order from satisfying the collateral-order doctrine when the officers appealed.
“Due to the timing of his amendment, the order did not satisfy the first prong of the collateral order doctrine at the time of the officers' appeal.”
He measures whether a school district met its 'child-find' duty on the information available to it at the time of its decision, the 'snapshot' rule, so later diagnoses and reports are not relevant to whether the district breached that duty.
“evidence of a child's behaviors or test results outside of that snapshot - such as reports that did not exist when a school district decided not to evaluate a child or when a school district denied eligibility - are not relevant to whether the school district breached its child-find obligations.”
In Parkin v. Avis Rent a Car System LLC, he vacated a finding that the rental companies waived arbitration by litigating into discovery, because they had reserved the right and needed facts from the customers before moving to compel.
“Those circumstances do not provide the certainty needed to find an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of the expressly reserved right to compel arbitration.”
Cautions
In Lee Williams’s case, he rejected Tech Mahindra’s reading of China Agritech as a broad limit on traditional equitable tolling.
“But Tech Mahindra overreads China Agritech, which was a 'clarification of American Pipe's reach,' not a broad holding announcing a limit on other traditional forms of equitable tolling.”
In Cheryl Borowski’s case, he explained that Younger abstention applies in the three circumstances identified by the Supreme Court.
“As Younger abstention operates an exception to the general rule that federal courts must decide cases within their limited jurisdiction, it applies only in those three circumstances identified by the Supreme Court.”
In his Hartmann v. Chudzik dissent, he would have affirmed abstention from a challenge to Pennsylvania bail practices because he read O'Shea as barring the requested federal supervision of ongoing state criminal proceedings.
“In sum, because O’Shea governs, the District Court did not err in abstaining under Younger, and I respectfully dissent.”
In his Bost en banc dissent, Phipps would have held the federal felon-possession bar unconstitutional as applied to Bost because he found no historical analogue for presumptive permanent disarmament.
“there is no historical analogue to justify the presumptive permanent disarmament effectuated by 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), and for that reason, I respectfully dissent.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“For these reasons, Gentile's complaint had to be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and we will affirm the judgment of the District Court.”
“We will therefore vacate the District Court's judgment and remand with instructions to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.”
“We will therefore deny the petition for review.”
“For the foregoing reasons, we will deny both the Government's motion to dismiss and Galeas Figueroa's petition seeking statutory withholding of removal and CAT protection.”
“For these reasons, the District Court properly ordered the retroactive reinstatement of Noga's benefits.... We will affirm.”
“For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the judgment of sentence.”
“For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the judgment of the District Court.”
“we will vacate the District Court's order and remand the case for the District Court to consider whether wrong-forum tolling applies and/or whether Williams has plausibly pleaded a prima facie pattern-or-practice claim.”
“this Court lacks appellate jurisdiction over the officers' appeal of the order denying qualified immunity under federal and New Jersey law, and this case will be dismissed.”
“For the foregoing reasons, the District Court's judgment will be affirmed.”
“we will vacate the District Court's judgment and remand for further proceedings.”
“we will vacate the District Court's judgment, and we will remand to the District Court with instructions to adjudicate the just-compensation-related § 1983 claims for damages against the PennDOT officials in their individual capacities and to dismiss all other claims without prejudice.”
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