Consuelo B. Marshall

United States District Court for the Central District of California district Appointed by Jimmy Carter (Democratic) 5 signed orders read

How Judge Marshall decides

Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.

What persuades

In screenplay/film copyright disputes she resolves substantial similarity on a 12(b)(6) motion by applying the objective extrinsic test element-by-element (plot, themes, dialogue, mood, setting, pace, characters, sequence) and filtering out unprotectable scenes-a-faire and generic stock elements; a lack of extrinsic similarity is fatal as a matter of law.

“Alfred v. Disney: 'Analyzing the plot, themes, dialogue, mood, setting, pace, characters, and sequence of events ..., the Court finds the parties' works are not substantially similar as a matter of law under the extrinsic test.'”

Motion outcomes

Counted from classified signed orders only. Percentages are shown only where the sample is large enough to be meaningful; smaller samples are reported as raw counts.

Summary judgment
N = 5
Granted: 4Denied: 1 counts only
Motions to dismiss
N = 1
Granted: 1 counts only

A "1 of 1" is one ruling, not a tendency. Treat small samples as illustrative, not predictive.

Signed rulings

A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.

Cooper-Harris v. United States
965 F. Supp. 2d 1139 · 2013-08-29
Summary judgment (plaintiff) Granted

“ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFFS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT”

Lee v. City of Los Angeles
88 F. Supp. 3d 1140 · 2015-02-24
Summary judgment (defendant) Granted

“ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT'S MOTIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT; DENYING PLAINTIFFS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY ADJUDICATION”

Summary judgment (plaintiff) Denied

“... DENYING PLAINTIFFS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY ADJUDICATION”

Retail Digital Network, LLC v. Appelsmith
945 F. Supp. 2d 1119 · 2013-05-13
Summary judgment (defendant) Granted

“ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT”

Willits v. City of Los Angeles
925 F. Supp. 2d 1089 · 2013-02-25
Summary judgment (plaintiff) Granted

“ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFF'S MOTION FOR PARTIAL SUMMARY JUDGMENT”

Alfred v. Walt Disney Co.
388 F. Supp. 3d 1174 · 2019-05-13
Motions to dismiss (defendant) Granted

“the Court GRANTS Defendants' Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff's Complaint without leave to amend, and DISMISSES Plaintiffs' copyright infringement claims WITH PREJUDICE.”

Caseload & timing

From public federal docket records for this judge.

Sample from search_dockets(assigned_judge='Consuelo Bland Marshall'). Senior since 2005 (and former Chief Judge 2001-05), Marshall still draws current intake: the 2026 sample mixes prisoner civil-rights / habeas (multiple Roderick Washington dockets; Alves v. Warden; Macklin v. California), a 28 U.S.C. 2255 (Gorg v. United States), antitrust (Malm, Inc. v. CoStar Group, '410 Anti-Trust'), and employment / civil-rights (Mulligan v. LAUSD '440 Civil Rights: Other'; Doss v. City of Los Angeles). All sampled dockets are pending; no terminated dockets surfaced, so no case durations are recorded.