Irma Carrillo Ramirez
How Judge Ramirez rules, drawn from 28 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
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 Chapter 13 confirmation, requires plans that separately treat deferred student loans to satisfy the disposable-income requirements of section 1325(b)(1).
“Because the plans do not satisfy 11 U.S.C. § 1325(b)(1), the Bankruptcy Code precludes their confirmation.”
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.
“we 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.
“Because failure to attach the judgment was not a jurisdictional defect mandating dismissal, and the district court abused its discretion, we REVERSE and REMAND.”
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.”
“I would remand for the district court to consider its subject matter jurisdiction in the first instance. But even if jurisdiction exists, I would reverse and remand because the district court erred in denying Appellants’ motions to intervene based on futility, as § 1623(a) is not a valid preemption statute and, consequently, does not preempt the Challenged Provisions.”
“The court accordingly enjoined both maps in their entirety. For the reasons that follow, we AFFIRM.”
“‘[W]e cannot find an effective denial of injunctive relief based on the district court’s failure to issue the requested ruling within 42 minutes.’ Id. at 4 (Ramirez, J., concurring).”
Per curiam published order (Ho, Wilson, Ramirez) entered after the Supreme Court (A.A.R.P. v. Trump, 605 U.S. __ (2025)) vacated the Fifth Circuit's earlier jurisdictional dismissal and remanded with instructions to proceed 'expeditiously': 'Accordingly, this matter is expedited to the next available randomly designated regular oral argument panel.' It is purely procedural, deciding no motion on the merits. Ramirez joined the per curiam order.
“Our analysis leads us to GRANT a preliminary injunction to prevent removal because we find no invasion or predatory incursion, conclude on the current record that the updated notice satisfies due process, and REMAND for further proceedings. To be clear as to our ruling, two judges agree that the revised notice procedures satisfy due process at least based on the current record.”
“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.”
“Because failure to attach the judgment was not a jurisdictional defect mandating dismissal, and the district court abused its discretion, we REVERSE and REMAND.”
“Christopher Dilworth appeals a summary judgment dismissing his false-arrest and excessive-force claims based on qualified immunity. 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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