John Kenneth Bush
How Judge Bush decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
Reads controlling Supreme Court precedent to set the governing standard and applies it faithfully even to reverse -- in EMW he applied the intervening NIFLA decision plus Casey to hold abortion-informed-consent disclosures get no heightened First Amendment scrutiny so long as they are truthful, non-misleading, and relevant.
“even though an abortion-informed-consent law compels a doctor's disclosure of certain information, it should be upheld so long as the disclosure is truthful, non-misleading, and relevant to an abortion.”
Strong protector of qualified immunity as an immunity from suit -- district courts must decide QI at the earliest stage and may not dodge it by ordering open-ended discovery; unambiguous video (Scott v. Harris) constrains what counts as a genuine factual dispute.
“Officers are entitled to a decision on qualified immunity at the earliest stage in the litigation because qualified immunity is an immunity from suit, not an immunity from liability.”
Procedural preferences
Polices the limits of federal subject-matter jurisdiction -- will affirm dismissal where the federal court lacks jurisdiction (e.g. to compel arbitration of a pending state probate proceeding), and decides on the narrowest jurisdictional ground without reaching the merits.
“We hold that it did not and AFFIRM.”
On an interlocutory QI appeal he will correct the predicate error and remand rather than reach the merits in the first instance, leaving the qualified-immunity merits to the district court.
“our usual practice is to allow a district court, which errs on a predicate issue, to consider subsequent issues in the first instance ... There is no need to go any further.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“Because H.B. 2, like the statute in Casey, requires the disclosure of truthful, non-misleading, and relevant information about an abortion, we hold that it does not violate a doctor's right to free speech under the First Amendment.”
“We therefore DENY the motion to dismiss, VACATE the district court's order, and REMAND for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.”
“In this appeal we consider whether a federal district court had subject matter jurisdiction to compel arbitration of a pending state court proceeding to probate and determine the assets of a decedent's estate. We hold that it did not and AFFIRM.”