Eric Earl Murphy
How Judge Murphy decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
Enforces qualified immunity rigorously at the 'clearly established' step on interlocutory appeal -- where existing precedent would not have put the specific officials on notice that their conduct (e.g. reliance on front-line medical providers) was unconstitutional, he reverses the denial of immunity.
“we agree with them that our precedent would not have clearly conveyed that their reliance on the front-line medical providers was so unreasonable as to violate the Eighth Amendment.”
Reasons from first principles and analogizes Supreme Court doctrine to new postures -- in the antitrust context he extended the indirect-PURCHASER proximate-cause bar (Apple v. Pepper) 'in reverse' to indirect SELLERS, requiring both antitrust injury and proximate causation.
“United Allergy is also an indirect seller because it is "two" "steps removed from" the insurers in the distribution chain.”
Procedural preferences
Treats a litigant's tactical choices as binding: a defendant who tries to win the whole case in court before invoking arbitration forfeits the arbitration right under the FAA. Decide whether to arbitrate early, not after testing the merits.
“we hold that the defendants lost their right to arbitrate under the Federal Arbitration Act because their conduct put them "in default in proceeding with [their requested] arbitration."”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“We thus reverse the district court's decision to dismiss this suit in favor of arbitration.”
“United Allergy is also an indirect seller because it is "two" "steps removed from" the insurers in the distribution chain. ... We thus affirm.”
“We thus reverse the district court's denial of qualified immunity and affirm its denial of state-law immunity.”