J. Michelle Childs
How Judge Childs rules, drawn from 29 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
How Judge Childs decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
She reads a remedial statute's catch-all language ('or otherwise') broadly against a narrow agency- or party-favored construction, reasoning that Congress does not include empty words and that a narrower reading would render the catch-all superfluous.
“‘otherwise’ indicates that the statutory provision reaches beyond the specific examples listed in the statutory text, making the provision a catch-all provision.”
Applying Kisor deference to an agency's reading of its own ambiguous regulation, she credits an interpretation that reflects a documented, decades-long consistent agency practice over one that could be dismissed as a convenient litigating position, and independently checks that the subject matter implicates genuine agency (not judicial) expertise.
“the Secretary's interpretation reflects its official and steadfast practice (circa 1982) of including a violation in an operator's history as of the date the violation becomes final ... In presenting us with a policy followed for over four decades, the Secretary certainly does not offer a post-hoc rationalization or 'convenient litigating position.'”
She distinguishes an unreviewable case-specific agency determination from the generally applicable legal standard governing that determination, preserving review of the latter when the statute bars review only of the former.
“We conclude that the review bar covers CMS’s drug-specific determinations, not the generally applicable legal standards that govern them.”
Procedural preferences
In Fourth Amendment consent-search cases, she reads Bumper v. North Carolina broadly: any police claim of lawful authority to search, true, false, or merely ambiguous, not only a false claim of a search warrant, can render a resident's outward assent mere acquiescence rather than voluntary consent, and a district court must expressly analyze that question rather than stopping once it finds no false statement.
“Bumper's holding is not limited to situations in which a police officer misrepresents the existence of a warrant. ... The critical fact in Bumper was not that a law enforcement officer misrepresented that he had a warrant; it was that 'a law enforcement officer claim[ed] authority to search a home under a warrant.'”
On agency modeling and technical-methodology challenges under arbitrary-and-capricious review, she declines to second-guess an agency's choice of analytical technique so long as it is rationally connected to the result and cross-checked against alternative methods, treating close scrutiny of statistical or scientific modeling choices as outside the judicial role.
“we do not look at the decision as would a scientist, but only to ensure that EPA adheres to certain minimal standards of rationality.”
A challenger pressing a factual distinction in administrative review should establish it in the agency record; vague comments and an unsupported distinction raised later do not make the agency's analysis arbitrary or capricious.
“But that is because Appellants did not demonstrate before the agency the existence of this distinction that it now presses. At most, comments before the agency discuss the possible distinction only in vague terms and provide no supporting evidence.”
Cautions
She construes exceptions to foreign sovereign immunity narrowly and declines to extend one immunity-waiving category (e.g., an action to confirm an arbitral award) to a related but textually distinct category (an action to domesticate a foreign court judgment confirming that award) merely because the two are factually 'closely related': she requires the sovereign's own conduct to show an intent to waive immunity from the specific category of suit actually filed.
“In light of the scope of the New York Convention, asking only whether foreign court judgments are ‘closely related’ to arbitral awards is too insubstantial a connection to establish strong evidence of a sovereign's intent to waive its immunity.”
On Article III standing, she requires plaintiffs to show more than a logical inference from traceability to redressability: where a challenged policy is only one of several independent paths to the same third-party behavior (here, a consular officer's discretion to ask for the same information even without the challenged blanket rule), a complaint must specifically allege why vacating the policy would actually change that behavior.
“redressability cannot always be logically inferred from traceability. ... Since a consular officer may still scrutinize a visa applicant's social media activities even if the social media policy were vacated, it cannot be logically inferred that Plaintiffs' injuries would be redressed by a favorable decision in this case.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“Instead, we hold that the Revised Rule is an appropriate exercise of EPA's statutory authority under the ‘Good Neighbor Provision,’ and deny the petition on the merits.”
“For the reasons below, we conclude that Section 100.3(c) is genuinely ambiguous, and the Secretary offers a permissible reading that is also entitled to deference. Therefore, we deny this petition.”
“For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the denial of Wilson's motion for compassionate release.”
“For the foregoing reasons, Fairless Energy fails to demonstrate that either the Commission's exercise of primary jurisdiction over the Transco-Fairless Energy natural gas transportation rate dispute or its decision regarding the appropriate rate was arbitrary and capricious. The court therefore denies Fairless Energy's consolidated petitions.”
“For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district court dismissing the Commission's complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim.”
“Accordingly, for the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court's dismissal of Michael W. Langeman's complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim.”
“We affirm the judgments of the district court.”
“We agree and accordingly affirm the district court's summary judgment order.”
“We affirm the district court because the record supports the enhancements.”
“For the foregoing reasons, we vacate the district court's order granting summary judgment to the SBA and remand this case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
“For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court's dismissal of Schilling's petition.”
“We reverse and remand for further consideration of Noble's complaint.”
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