Florence Y. Pan
How Judge Pan decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
She reads a statute's operative words in their full context, refusing to let a party isolate a permissive or qualifying phrase from the limiting language around it; a 'may . . . in order to defray costs' provision, for example, caps rather than guarantees a charge.
“The Act permits guarantors to charge borrowers only for "reasonable collection costs," and the Department permissibly implemented that directive by ensuring that borrowers who create little or no collections work for a guarantor are not charged thousands of dollars in fees.”
In agency-review cases she distinguishes carefully between defined regulatory terms of art, declining to let an ordinary-language dictionary definition override a term that the regulatory text and structure have specifically defined.
“Where, as here, the regulations distinguish between "consolidation" and "termination," a dictionary definition cannot supplant the regulatory framework.”
Procedural preferences
She guards the boundaries of appellate jurisdiction, declining to review orders that are not final -- a remand to an agency, with vacatur stayed so the challenged program stays in effect, is not an appealable final decision.
“Because the remand order at issue is not a "final decision[]" of the district court, 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and no exception to the finality rule is applicable here, we conclude that we lack jurisdiction.”
In employment and civil-rights appeals she enforces a claimant's statutory right to independent review, holding that a district court reviewing a mixed case must consider discrimination claims de novo even when the agency dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds.
“Because the district court did not allow Perry to litigate the merits of his discrimination claims, as required by statute, we reverse in part and remand for further proceedings on the discrimination claims.”
Cautions
She holds agencies to the statute's own demand for reasoned decisionmaking: a safety or environmental rule that acknowledges a low-probability but high-consequence catastrophic risk cannot rest on a bare finding of 'no significant impact' without the hard look the law requires.
“PHMSA's decision not to prepare an EIS was therefore arbitrary and capricious.”
She applies the exclusionary rule's good-faith exception pragmatically: even assuming a warrant was defective, suppression is unwarranted where officers reasonably relied on a facially valid warrant, focusing the remedy on deterring deliberate misconduct rather than punishing objective good faith.
“Because law enforcement officers relied in good faith on the warrant, regardless of whether it was lawfully issued, suppression is unwarranted and we affirm.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“The district court dismissed the case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(i). We affirm.”
“The district court dismissed the Complaint, holding that appellants failed to allege sufficient links between Hamas and USCPR to hold USCPR liable for any acts of terrorism. We agree and affirm.”
“Bahlul asks us to vacate his conspiracy conviction or, alternatively, to remand his case for resentencing by military-commission members. We deny the petitions.”
“Because several of the petitioner’s arguments are time-barred and the EPA otherwise acted within its broad discretion, we deny the petition for review.”
“For the reasons stated, we affirm in part and reverse in part. We hold that Ascendium has standing to challenge the entirety of the Rule; that the Department did not exceed its statutory authority in promulgating the Rule; and that the Rule is not arbitrary or capricious. We thus uphold the Rule in its entirety.”
“Because the Commission breached notice-and-comment requirements, erroneously relied on certain data in its cost-benefit analysis, and selected an arbitrary effective date for the rule, we grant the WCMA’s petition for review and vacate the rule.”
“Because FERC properly interpreted the terms of AEP’s tariff and did not act arbitrarily and capriciously, we deny the petition for review.”
“Because FERC acted well within its discretion in both cases, we deny the petitions for review.”
“We hold that the SEA ratified the composition of the Covered List and leaves no room for Petitioners to challenge the placement of their products on that list under a predecessor statute. But we agree with Petitioners that the FCC’s definition of “critical infrastructure” is overly broad. We therefore deny the petitions in part and grant them in part.”
“In our view, the plain language of the disputed 2020 letter permits DOJ to reopen its investigation. We therefore reverse the judgment of the district court.”
“Because the district court did not allow Perry to litigate the merits of his discrimination claims, as required by statute, we reverse in part and remand for further proceedings on the discrimination claims. We affirm the district court’s conclusion that the Board properly dismissed Perry’s mixed case for lack of jurisdiction.”
“Because the evidence was sufficient to establish that Robertson acted “corruptly,” we affirm his conviction. But the district court’s application of the offense characteristics for obstructing the “administration of justice” is plainly erroneous. We therefore vacate the district court’s sentence and remand for resentencing.”
Put Judge Pan's record to work
Ezel drafts and answers grounded in this exact profile: how Judge Pan actually rules, not a generic AI guess.
Opens in Ezel Pro. Every answer is grounded in Judge Pan's own signed orders and cites them.