Douglas H. Ginsburg
How Judge Ginsburg decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
He enforces a strict quid pro quo on agency procedural deadlines: an agency may enforce even harsh, no-cure filing rules, but only if it gave genuinely clear notice of the deadline -- overlapping or contradictory published cut-off notices defeat that requirement even when the agency believes its own error is obvious in hindsight.
“absent clear notice, it was arbitrary and capricious for the agency to reject Oregon's application.”
In First Amendment challenges to structural media-ownership rules, he asks whether the regulation targets a speaker's identity/source rather than the content of what is said -- a rule can restrict a great deal of speech and still draw only intermediate scrutiny if its concern is bottleneck market power, not any speaker's message.
“the focus of the channel occupancy provision is upon the source of speech, not its content.”
He reads institutional constitutional immunities functionally: what matters is whether a statement was genuinely spurred by an inquiry into the exercise of official power, not how the investigating body initially labeled its inquiry.
“the congressman's statements in this case are protected because they were directly spurred by the inquiry into whether he had abused his office to obtain a vacation.”
Cautions
He requires an unmistakable textual waiver before letting a plaintiff attach or garnish funds held by the United States -- a broad 'notwithstanding any other provision of law' catchall is not enough on its own, and any genuine ambiguity is resolved in the government's favor.
“A waiver of sovereign immunity must be clearly discernable from the statutory text in light of traditional interpretive tools.”
He polices standing and mootness rigorously against a party whose own delay, or failure to seek a stay, let the case become moot -- a litigant cannot invoke the 'evading review' exception when it was his own leisurely pace, not the agency action's brevity, that mooted the case.
“Having pursued his appeal in so leisurely a fashion, Armstrong made it impossible for us to say the order of the Administrator was too short-lived to be reviewed by this court.”
He treats forfeiture strictly, including for constitutional arguments raised for the first time only after an intervening ruling makes them more urgent -- a party should raise every available argument at the earliest petition or brief, not wait to see how the case develops.
“we have no doubt Fashion Valley forfeited its constitutional argument because it did not raise that argument in its petition for review by this court.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“we find it to be in accordance with law, and it is, therefore, Affirmed.”
“For the foregoing reasons, the order of the FCC rejecting Russian River's application for a new FM station is Affirmed.”
“This dispute between the petitioner and the FCC falls outside the constitutional domain of the federal courts.”
“The order of the district court dismissing the suit is Reversed.”
“For the reasons set out above, we hold that the Commission properly rejected the Cellwave and Futurewave applications to serve RSAs. The order of the Commission therefore Affirmed.”
“The decision of the Commission denying PBC's application is therefore Affirmed.”
“Because we conclude that the Commission's general approach to damages is not unlawful and that the IXCs' claims are not barred by the applicable statute of limitations, we deny the petitions of the LECs in their entirety.”
“Because 'we agree with the IXCs that the Commission's limited offset policy is unlawful, we grant the IXCs' petitions with regard to that issue, vacate the Commission orders in part, and remand these matters to the Commission to recalculate the IXCs' damages.”
“Allnet's petition is dismissed as moot in view of our decision invalidating limited off[sets].”
“The FCC acted arbitrarily and capriciously by rejecting Oregon's application as untimely without having provided clear notice of the filing deadline. Therefore, we vacate the Commission's order dismissing Oregon's application and remand this case to the agency for further proceedings consistent with the foregoing opinion.”
“Therefore, the petitions for review of the Commission's orders are Denied.”
“In summary, we hold that the Commission's decision to assign DBS channels by auction is not retroactive, arbitrary and capricious, or without statutory authority; the Commission's one-time divestiture requirement was reasonable; and DIRECTV lacks standing to challenge the Commission's decision not to exclude cable operators from the auction of the channels reclaimed from ACC. Therefore the petitions to review the Commission's new rules and regulations for DBS are Denied.”
“On the other hand, DIRECTV does not have standing to challenge the Commission's decision not to restrict the participation of the cable industry in the auction of the DBS channels reclaimed from ACC.”
“We hold that although s 30 apparently was rendered an anachronism by the Federal Rules in 1938, the statute does not conflict with, and hence is not superseded by Rule 26(c). Accordingly, we are constrained to enforce the statute by its terms and to apply it to the depositions taken in this case. We therefore affirm the judgment of the district court.”
“Therefore we must remand the record for the district court to specify the issue or issues for appeal.”
Put Judge Ginsburg's record to work
Ezel drafts and answers grounded in this exact profile: how Judge Ginsburg actually rules, not a generic AI guess.
Opens in Ezel Pro. Every answer is grounded in Judge Ginsburg's own signed orders and cites them.