Irma Carrillo Ramirez
How Judge Ramirez rules, drawn from 24 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
About Judge Ramirez
Irma Carrillo Ramirez is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Appointed by President Joseph R. Biden, Judge Ramirez received a commission on December 8, 2023.
Judge Ramirez's practices and standing orders
The court's website lists no individual practices or standing orders of Judge Ramirez'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).
How Judge Ramirez decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
For Fair Credit Reporting Act reinvestigation claims, requires proof that the reported information was inaccurate before reaching the adequacy of the investigation.
“We join the other circuits in concluding that inaccuracy is a threshold requirement for § 1681i claims.”
In a Chapter 13 appeal involving deferred student-loan debt, Ramirez held that the proposed plans did not satisfy section 1325(b)(1) and vacated their confirmation for revised plans.
“For these reasons, we VACATE the confirmation of the Plans and REMAND to allow Debtors to file new plans consistent with this decision.”
Allows cities to regulate disturbances at public meetings but rejects a decorum policy broad enough to reach nearly anything a speaker might say.
“An enactment’s legitimate sweep may constitutionally encompass disturbances to regulate the manner of speech in the government’s forum for the government’s purpose, but it cannot do so in swaths so broad that nearly anything that could be uttered could fall within its reach.”
In a federal-contractor wage case, Ramirez anchored the analysis in the procurement statute's text and structure rather than the challengers' preferred account of its policy. An argument about statutory authority should explain why the enacted words impose the asserted limit, not merely why the resulting policy seems unexpected.
“Courts cannot elevate a party’s conception of a statute’s purpose over the plain text.”
In trade-secret litigation, Ramirez treated secrecy as relative and credited evidence of protection even though some people knew parts of the information. A claimant should show the cost of independent duplication, controls on disclosure, and the remaining nonpublic combination of elements.
“Secrecy is a relative term. The information may be known to several persons and yet still be secret if third parties would be willing to pay for a breach of trust in order to ascertain it.”
Procedural preferences
Treats failure to attach the appealed judgment to a bankruptcy notice of appeal as a nonjurisdictional defect and reviews dismissal for compliance errors as discretionary.
“RSB and Picture Pro filed their notice of appeal within the time limit provided in Rule 8002, so the district court had jurisdiction over the appeal.”
In a statutory whistleblower-award dispute, Ramirez enforced the definition of a covered action rather than extending the award provision to a useful bankruptcy filing outside the listed categories. Eligibility arguments should trace each claimed recovery to the precise action identified by the statute.
“Because the motion to appoint a trustee in the bankruptcy case was not an ‘action brought by’ a qualifying entity, it does not meet the definition of a ‘covered judicial or administrative action’ under § 78u-6(a)(1) or a ‘related action’ under § 78u-6(a)(5).”
Cautions
Applies a demanding deliberate-indifference standard to pretrial-detainee medical claims; negligence, even if gross, does not establish the required mental state.
“It ‘cannot be inferred merely from a negligent or even a grossly negligent response to a substantial risk of serious harm.’”
In a business-interruption case, Ramirez applied binding precedent requiring tangible physical loss or damage despite broader communicable-disease language elsewhere in the policy. Coverage briefing should identify a concrete alteration or deprivation and directly distinguish controlling interpretations of the same trigger.
“We have already determined—as a matter of law—that COVID-19 does not affect property in a ‘physical’ way.”
In a force case, Ramirez rejected a clearly-established-law argument framed only at a high level of generality. A qualified-immunity response should identify controlling or near-analogous facts, not simply restate the abstract constitutional rule.
“This ‘[a]bstract or general statement[] . . . untethered to analogous or near-analogous facts [is] not sufficient to establish a right “clearly” in a given context . . . .’”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“We AFFIRM in part, REVERSE in part, and REMAND for resentencing.”
Judge Ramirez dissented from the affirmance of the intervention denial. She would have remanded for a jurisdictional analysis or reversed the futility ruling on the asserted federal preemption theory.
Judge Ramirez concurred in the April 18 jurisdictional dismissal because the district court had only 42 minutes to address the emergency request. The Supreme Court subsequently vacated that dismissal.
Judge Ramirez agreed that the removal proclamation did not identify an invasion or predatory incursion, but would have required more time for detainees to seek review after receiving notice.
“SpaceX appeals the ‘effective denial’ of its motion for injunctive relief challenging the allegedly unconstitutional administrative proceeding before the National Labor Relations Board (‘NLRB’). We DISMISS this appeal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.”
“Hung Huu Quoc Nguyen (Nguyen) challenges the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) revocation of its approval of his EB-3 visa petition. We AFFIRM the district court’s dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.”
“In this insurance-coverage dispute, the parties disagree whether the policy covers business-interruption losses allegedly caused by COVID-19. The district court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. We AFFIRM.”
“The surety, Lexon Insurance Company, Inc., sued the prior leaseholders for reimbursement, but the district court dismissed its claims. We AFFIRM the dismissal.”
“We REVERSE the district court’s dismissal of the bankruptcy appeal and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
“Christopher Dilworth appeals a summary judgment dismissing his false-arrest and excessive-force claims based on qualified immunity. We AFFIRM.”
“Appellants are a group of lawfully admitted Indian nationals who have applied for permanent residency... Because subject-matter jurisdiction is lacking, we must VACATE and REMAND with instructions to dismiss.”
“Their challenge to the constitutionality of that statute... was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. We AFFIRM.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Circuit judges do not carry a trial caseload; not enumerated.
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