Harold Montelle Stephens
Judge Stephens no longer hears cases. This profile is preserved as a historical record of how they ruled.
How Judge Stephens decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
Stephens treated waiver as requiring knowledge and intentional surrender of the right at issue.
“Waiver requires “intentional relinquishment of a known right.””
He required genuine subject-matter expertise before accepting agency opinion evidence as expert testimony.
“Roderick did not testify to any such study or experience in the field of radio broadcasting, community facilities, needs, and the like, as qualified him as an expert in the proper sense of that term.”
Procedural preferences
Stephens enforced statutory prerequisites to appellate tax review as written.
“the plain language of the statute requires payment of the tax within ninety days after receipt of the notice of assessment as a condition precedent to the taking of the appeal.”
He required patent applicants to exhaust the administrative appeal before invoking an equity action.
“The administrative remedy must he first exhausted.”
Stephens would not allow procedural reentry of a judgment to restart an expired appeal period.
“make a dead letter of our rule fixing a definite time for appeal.”
Cautions
Stephens distinguished protection of a mark's secondary meaning from statutory registration of a descriptive term.
“the existence of a secondary meaning is not a foundation for registration of a descriptive word.”
He directed statutory appellate-fee requests back to the trial court rather than fixing the fee in the appellate court.
“remand the case to the Municipal Court of Appeals with directions to remand' it to the Municipal Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“Reversed and remanded for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Not applicable to this circuit-court record.
A historical record
Judge Stephens no longer hears cases. This profile stays available as a record of how they ruled. If you're preparing for a matter, start from the court's current bench.