Terry J. Hatter Jr.
How Judge Jr. decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
Procedural preferences
Decides agency-action and insurance-coverage disputes on summary judgment by methodically running the Celotex burden-shifting framework (prima facie case, then shift to the non-movant to raise a triable issue) and resolves them with terse decretal '...be, and hereby is, Granted/Denied' paragraphs.
“Perez v. City National: 'the moving party has the initial burden of establishing a prima facie case ... If the Secretary satisfies his burden, the burden shifts to City National to introduce evidence sufficient to raise a triable issue.'”
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 = 6 |
Granted: 4Denied: 2 | counts only |
| Habeas petition N = 1 |
Denied: 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.
“It is Ordered that Plaintiffs motion for summary judgment be, and hereby is, Granted.”
“It is further Ordered that Defendants's motion for summary judgment be, and hereby is, Denied.”
“It is Ordered that the Secretary's motion for partial summary judgment be, and hereby is, Granted.”
“It is Ordered that Provident's motion to establish ERISA application and for dismissal of state law claims be, and hereby is, Denied.”
“It is further Ordered that Nosrati's motion for an order that this matter is not governed by ERISA be, and hereby is, Granted.”
“It is Ordered that Benchmark's motion for summary judgment be, and hereby is, Granted as to Benchmark's first claim -- rescission of the 2010, 2011, and 2012 Policies. ... Granted as to Benchmark's second claim -- a judicial declaration that it does not have a duty to defend or indemnify ...”
“IT IS ORDERED that the Petition is denied and this action is dismissed without prejudice because it is successive, petitioner did not obtain the requisite authorization from the Court of Appeals to file a successive petition, and this Court lacks jurisdiction to consider it.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Sample from search_dockets(assigned_judge='Terry J. Hatter Jr.'). Senior since 2005 (and former Chief Judge 1998-2001), Hatter still draws current intake: the 2026 sample mixes the C.D. Cal. alien-detainee s2241 habeas surge (Binh Quoc Ma, Ho Duc Nguyen, Dung Van Truong v. Marin/Bowen -- Riverside 5:26-cv), Strike 3 Holdings, LLC copyright (BitTorrent John-Doe) suits, and commercial contract / corporate disputes (MHF Opco v. Drexler; Hygea Health Holdings v. Connor; Candlewood Partners v. Stratos Fuel). All sampled dockets are pending; no terminated merits dockets surfaced, so no case durations are recorded.