Gregg Jeffrey Costa
Judge Costa no longer hears cases. This profile is preserved as a historical record of how they ruled.
How Judge Costa decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
Costa reads the FLSA anti-retaliation provision to allow an employee to recover for emotional injury, not just economic loss.
“an employee may recover for emotional injury resulting from retaliation.”
He treats reinstatement as the preferred equitable remedy in a Title VII case and scrutinizes a district court's refusal of it.
“Reinstatement is the preferred equitable remedy under Title VII.”
Procedural preferences
Applying the categorical approach, he distinguishes statutory elements from alternative means, so a jury need not agree on means.
“Mathis held that only the elements matter.”
A party's capacity to contract is a threshold question; without capacity there is no contract and a choice-of-law clause has no effect.
“Without capacity, there is no contract.”
Cautions
A PLRA strike attaches only when an entire action is dismissed on the enumerated grounds, not claim-by-claim, because the statute speaks of actions.
“The statute speaks of “actions,” not “claims,” that were”
A voluntary dismissal without prejudice does not establish a prevailing party for fee-shifting purposes.
“A dismissal without prejudice thus does not make any party a prevailing one.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“Finding no error in either case, we affirm for the reasons discussed”
“AFFIRM in part and REVERSE in part the judgment of”
“we dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.”
“We thus VACATE the judgment of the Board and REMAND for”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Not applicable to this circuit-court record.
A historical record
Judge Costa no longer hears cases. This profile stays available as a record of how they ruled. If you're preparing for a matter, start from the court's current bench.