Patricia A. Millett
How Judge Millett decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
Statutory text does the whole job when its ordinary meaning covers the case: she starts with the words Congress actually used and stops there once they resolve the dispute, resisting invitations to import unwritten limits or exceptions.
“In determining the applicability of Exemption 9, we start[] with its text. ... In this case, that is also where we end.”
In FOIA cases she measures exhaustion and mootness against what the agency actually decided and disclosed, not what it could have said: an agency cannot fault a requester for failing to appeal a rationale the agency invented only after suit was filed.
“The only live FOIA decision now under review is the one the Department chose to make for the first time in litigation, and for which there was no administrative avenue to exhaust.”
Procedural preferences
Jurisdiction always comes first, even when the merits look easy or the parties have not raised the issue themselves; a court that reaches a simpler merits question before confirming it may hear the case at all has skipped a mandatory step.
“The first order of business is always to decide whether we can decide the appeal.”
In separation-of-powers disputes between the political branches, she gives real weight to an agreement between the current President and Congress and requires the party challenging that agreement to show a concrete, particularized harm -- a generalized institutional objection is not enough to override it.
“On the record before us, former President Trump has provided no basis for this court to override President Biden's judgment and the agreement and accommodations worked out between the Political Branches over these documents.”
Cautions
An agency loses deference when its own reasoning contradicts itself: a rule that undercuts the premise of the agency's own immediately preceding holding will not survive review just because each piece sounds reasonable in isolation.
“Neither of those rationales makes sense juxtaposed against the Commission's immediately preceding explanation that the 'new normal' -- not the arbitrariness of turning a calendar -- defines when the Postal Service regained its ability to predict or project mail volumes.”
She will not affirm an agency fact-finding that is announced rather than reasoned: substantial-evidence review means actually grappling with the record evidence that cuts against the agency's conclusion, not ignoring it.
“Because the Board's decision rested on insubstantial evidence and failed to address important evidence supporting the Company, we grant the Company's petition for review, deny the Board's cross-application for enforcement, vacate the Board's decision, and remand.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“Huron's and the Society's appellate about-face on the nature of Huron's claimed injury leaves them no viable basis on which to establish standing. We accordingly affirm the judgment of the district court.”
“Facebook qualifies as an interactive computer service ... This case thus presents no occasion to address the outer bounds of preemption under the Act ... For those reasons, we affirm the district court's judgment.”
“There is no personal jurisdiction in this case over Bailey in the District of Columbia. ... the complaint makes no plausible allegation of personal jurisdiction over Bailey, and the district court should have promptly dismissed the case on that basis.”
“The district court's decision to dismiss one count of the complaint without prejudice, as part of its final order dismissing the action in its entirety, did not deprive this court of appellate jurisdiction. On the merits, we affirm the judgment of dismissal.”
“Because the Department had, at best, only limited additional data for 2008 and 2009, and because the 2009 data suggested that hospitals were paid more than expected, the Department's decision to wait a bit longer before reevaluating its complex predictive model was reasonable.”
“Congress was explicit that this court has statutory jurisdiction only to review a 'determination' by the Royalty Judges 'under subsection (c)' of Chapter 8 of the Copyright Act. ... Unfortunately for IPG, this knotty dispute is not one that this court may untangle through an appeal under 17 U.S.C. Sec. 803(d). ... we dismiss this appeal.”
“Cutler has standing to litigate his Establishment Clause claim, but it fails on the merits. He lacks standing to press his equal protection challenge.”
“We hold that the Commission's 'new normal' determination is reasonable, but its rule that lost mail volumes should be counted only once makes no sense on this record. We therefore grant the Postal Service's petition for review in part.”
“Because the Commission's economic analysis was well within the wide bounds of agency expertise, we deny the separate petition for review filed by representatives of the mailing industry.”
“We uphold the Secretary's decision because, under the regulations' plain language, power cables and extension cords are most naturally considered components of 'grounding systems.'”
“The default rule is that jurisdiction starts with the district court, and that default rule applies here. We accordingly order that this action be transferred to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.”
“This long-running dispute should draw closer to a conclusion today as we deny Stolz's appeal and dismiss as moot his central claim challenging Entercom's legal eligibility to acquire the station.”
“Having already answered this same legal question involving the same parties and functionally the same factual record in FedEx I, we give the same answer here. The Hartford single-route FedEx drivers are independent contractors ... We accordingly grant FedEx's petitions, vacate the Board's orders, and deny the Board's cross-application for enforcement.”
Put Judge Millett's record to work
Ezel drafts and answers grounded in this exact profile: how Judge Millett actually rules, not a generic AI guess.
Opens in Ezel Pro. Every answer is grounded in Judge Millett's own signed orders and cites them.