Stephanos Bibas
How Judge Bibas rules, drawn from 47 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
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.”
In a criminal-history hiring case, Bibas enforced the exemptions the legislature actually listed and declined to create another for information disclosed by the applicant. An employer should connect its use of a conviction to the statute's substantive hiring criteria rather than rely on the source of the information.
“We cannot create an exemption from § 9125(a) when the legislature failed to do so.”
In an ERISA case, Bibas evaluated prudence through the fiduciaries' decision process rather than investment performance alone. Regular advisor review, active committee engagement, documented monitoring, and follow-up supported judgment for the plan fiduciaries despite periods of underperformance.
“ERISA, like trust law, does not hold trustees liable for poor performance alone. Courts review process first.”
In Second Amendment analysis, Bibas distinguishes weapons commonly used for lawful purposes from those principally associated with crime, and treats narrow, objective registration steps as incidental burdens rather than infringements.
“Machine guns are commonly used for crime, not self-defense. So they can be banned. And reasonable registration requirements are not infringements.”
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.”
Bibas enforced the contractual boundary of a broad labor-arbitration clause. Invoking a provision was not enough when the claimed payment right flowed from a prior award rather than from the collective-bargaining agreement that contained the clause.
“If the rights claimed are not covered by the contract that contains the arbitration clause, then the dispute falls outside the clause’s limits.”
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.”
Bibas upheld sanctions where lawyers used scripted dispute letters and half-truths to manufacture debt-collection claims. Prelitigation conduct can support inherent-authority sanctions when it was designed to mislead the court and improperly shape the later judicial process.
“Courts may sanction prelitigation conduct ‘intended to improperly influence the judicial process.’”
In an academic defamation case, Bibas distinguished disclosed scholarly disagreement from opinions implying undisclosed defamatory facts. Pleading should identify the factual implication, read the statement in context, and explain why it can be proven false rather than merely offensive or critical.
“Statements of fact can be defamatory. So too can statements of opinion that ‘give[] rise to the inference that there are undisclosed facts that justify the forming of the opinion.’”
For employment discrimination, Bibas requires objective harm to an identifiable employment term and evidence tying the challenged conduct to a protected trait; workplace stress and an abrasive supervisor alone do not suffice.
“Mere emotional harm and stress are not enough.”
He treats suppression as a deterrent reserved for deliberate, reckless, grossly negligent, or systemic police misconduct, not as an automatic remedy for an isolated mistake.
“That drastic measure is reserved for officer misconduct that is deliberate, reckless, or grossly negligent.”
Even where constitutional harm and some likelihood of success are shown, Bibas requires concrete proof on all preliminary-injunction factors and gives weight to preserving a longstanding status quo, especially close to an election.
“Even if there is some likelihood of success and some irreparable injury, a district court may find that the balance of equities is enough to cut the other way.”
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.”
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