Jane Branstetter Stranch
How Judge Stranch decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
On qualified immunity at summary judgment she looks past the chaotic scene to the specific instrumentality and its design use -- a munition built for long-range crowd dispersal, fired at point-blank range, can be excessive even where the surrounding officers' conduct is protected. She draws inferences in the non-movant's favor and lets a jury decide the close case.
“a reasonable jury could find that [Officer Reinink] used excessive force when he fired Spede-Heat at Hart at point-blank range.”
Vindicates ERISA's substantive participant protections: a pension plan's use of outdated mortality assumptions that reduce married retirees' benefits can violate the actuarial-equivalence requirement, and a complaint so alleging survives a motion to dismiss. (Reflects her decades representing pension participants before the bench.)
“alleged that their plans used outdated mortality data to calculate their benefits, which improperly decreased those benefits in violation of ERISA's actuarial equivalence requirement.”
Procedural preferences
Demands a reasoned record from district courts: a box-checked summary denial of a supervised-release early-termination motion is reversible because nothing shows the court weighed the Sec 3553(a) factors. Explain your reasoning or expect a vacatur.
“we hold that the record must demonstrate that the district court considered the relevant Sec 3553(a) factors before denying an early termination motion.”
Judicial restraint / minimalism: she resists reaching out to decide a major legal question that the parties did not brief, preferring to wait for a case in which the issue is squarely litigated, and is wary of using Loper Bright to redefine settled statutory standards from scratch.
“Loper Bright does not give this court the power or the responsibility to define "exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" from new cloth -- it instead teaches that reinterpreting a statute should be undertaken only with great caution.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“we AFFIRM the grant of summary judgment based on qualified immunity as to Officer Johnson and Sergeant Bush and AFFIRM the grant of summary judgment in favor of the City, but we REVERSE the grant of summary judgment based on qualified immunity as to Officer Reinink, and REMAND for further proceedings on that claim.”
“We REVERSE and REMAND for further proceedings.”
“we VACATE the district court's Summary Order, AFFIRM the district court's Documents Access Order, and REMAND for further proceedings.”
“we AFFIRM the district court's denial of Plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
“Because Moctezuma-Reyes has not shown that he meets the criteria for cancellation of removal under the old test, and because no party has challenged the BIA's authority to interpret Sec 1229b(b)(1)(D), I would affirm the BIA's judgment and expressly reserve ruling on the current test.”