Terry J. Hatter Jr.

How Judge Hatter rules, drawn from 5 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.

Court
United States District Court for the Central District of California
Position
district
Appointed by
Jimmy Carter (Democratic)
Commissioned
1979-12-20
Education
Wesleyan University (A.B., 1954); University of Chicago Law School (J.D., 1960)
Signed orders read
5

How Judge Hatter 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.'”

Signed rulings

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

Fragosa v. Moore
17 F. Supp. 3d 985 · 2014-04-28
Summary judgment (plaintiff) Granted

“It is Ordered that Plaintiffs motion for summary judgment be, and hereby is, Granted.”

Summary judgment (defendant) Denied

“It is further Ordered that Defendants's motion for summary judgment be, and hereby is, Denied.”

Perez v. City National Corp.
176 F. Supp. 3d 945 · 2016-04-05
Summary judgment (plaintiff) Granted

“It is Ordered that the Secretary's motion for partial summary judgment be, and hereby is, Granted.”

Nosrati v. Provident Life & Accident Ins. Co.
383 F. Supp. 3d 990 · 2019-04-16
Summary judgment (defendant) Denied

“It is Ordered that Provident's motion to establish ERISA application and for dismissal of state law claims be, and hereby is, Denied.”

Summary judgment (plaintiff) Granted

“It is further Ordered that Nosrati's motion for an order that this matter is not governed by ERISA be, and hereby is, Granted.”

Benchmark Insurance Co. v. Dismon Corp.
262 F. Supp. 3d 991 · 2017-08-16
Summary judgment (plaintiff) 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 ...”

Olvera v. Gonzales
834 F. Supp. 2d 944 · 2011-05-20
Habeas petition (petitioner) Denied

“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.

The reviewed current assignments include copyright, commercial contract, pension, bankruptcy-related, and immigration-habeas matters. Thirteen valid matters in the bounded 2026 windows remained pending. The only two rows reported terminated had internally inconsistent docket data and were excluded from outcome and duration analysis.

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