Stephanos Bibas
How Judge Bibas decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
He is a committed textualist who resolves statutory questions from the words Congress used, reading a disputed term in light of its ordinary meaning and its neighboring provisions, and treats a law's reach as controlled by its text rather than by guesses about what legislators privately intended or hoped to accomplish.
“A court's job is to parse texts, not psychoanalyze lawmak- ers.”
Where a statute's text genuinely admits a broad and a narrow reading, and the broad one would raise serious constitutional problems, he applies the canon of constitutional avoidance -- adopting the narrower plausible reading to save the statute rather than striking it down -- reserving the 'strong medicine' of invalidation for cases where no fair reading can rescue the law.
“Though the text supports the broad reading, constitu- tional avoidance tells us to select the narrow one.”
Procedural preferences
He construes ambiguous dismissal orders and other harsh procedural consequences against the party invoking them, adopting clear-statement rules so that a litigant is not stripped of the merits -- for instance by claim preclusion -- unless the record says so clearly and expressly, reflecting a strong preference that cases be decided on their merits.
“We construe ambiguities in dismissal orders against claim preclusion. So we will not read a dismissal order as dismissing involuntarily, or voluntarily with prejudice, unless it says so clearly and expressly.”
Cautions
He holds lawyers to a rigorous duty of candor as officers of the court: statements that are literally true but misleading, or factual assertions made without a reasonable investigation, can draw sanctions even absent bad faith, because the standard is objective reasonableness and there is no empty-head, pure-heart excuse.
“Courts rely on lawyers' honesty; lawyers may not mislead them.”
He insists that equitable relief is never automatic: even a plaintiff likely to succeed on a constitutional claim is not entitled to a preliminary injunction as of right, because a court must still weigh irreparable harm, the balance of equities, and the public interest -- and the absence of irreparable harm alone can defeat the request.
“A preliminary injunction is not a shortcut to the merits. Before granting one, a district court must also weigh the equi- ties, the public interest, and the threat of irreparable harm.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“This we cannot do. So we will affirm.”
“So we will deny his petition for review.”
“So it could not preclude this suit. We will thus vacate and remand for further proceedings.”
“So like the District Court before us, we will affirm.”
“We will thus affirm the dis- missal of the statutory right-to-counsel claim and otherwise re- verse and remand for the District Court to address the merits.”
“As long as an opinion relies on disclosed facts, it is privileged. That is what happened here. And C.M. did not plead that Newsweek knew the facts were false or recklessly disregarded the truth. We will thus affirm.”
“So we will vacate and remand the District Court's order to the contrary.”
“We will thus re- verse and remand for the District Court to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.”
“We cannot rewrite the statute. Only Congress can. So we will reverse and remand for the District Court to consider the RFRA counterclaim.”
“Here, we are confident that Yung's conviction is lawful, as is his duty to compensate the interviewer for the harm he caused. But because Georgetown suffered no damage to any property right, we will vacate that restitution order.”
“These claims check neither box. So we cannot hear them.”
“Because those mild sanctions were justified and reasonable, we will affirm.”
Put Judge Bibas's record to work
Ezel drafts and answers grounded in this exact profile: how Judge Bibas actually rules, not a generic AI guess.
Opens in Ezel Pro. Every answer is grounded in Judge Bibas's own signed orders and cites them.