Amit P. Mehta
How Judge Mehta decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In APA unreasonable-delay (TRAC) cases, especially immigration/visa processing, he treats delays of roughly two to three years as not unreasonable as a matter of law, and gives controlling weight to TRAC factor four: a court order moving one applicant up the queue produces 'no net gain' at the expense of others, so relief is usually denied.
“Courts in this District consistently have held that two or three years does not constitute an unreasonable delay.”
When a plaintiff seeks to compel an agency that has missed a mandatory statutory deadline, he holds the agency to a 'heavy burden' to prove a faster timeline is impossible (not merely impractical); competing regulatory priorities, manpower, and budget are no excuse because shifting resources is 'commonplace,' and the agency must show 'utmost diligence.'
“an agency bears a “heavy burden to demonstrate” that a proposed remedial timeline is “impossib[le].””
Procedural preferences
He will not let a plaintiff amend the operative complaint through an opposition brief; a theory (or program) not pleaded in the complaint cannot be raised for the first time to defeat a motion to dismiss.
“It is axiomatic that a complaint may not be amended by the briefs in opposition to a motion to dismiss.”
On an unopposed dispositive motion he issues a Fox/Neal-style warning to a pro se party and, if there is no response, treats the movant's statement of material facts as conceded and decides on the record (Rule 56(e)(2)) rather than granting by default.
“Although the court warned Plaintiff about the possible consequences of failing to respond to WMATA's motion, see Order, ECF No. 19, he did not do so. Plaintiff therefore has not disputed any of WMATA's factual assertions.”
Cautions
In a negligence case he requires expert testimony on the standard of care whenever the subject is beyond a layperson's common knowledge (e.g., proper staffing/maintenance of a transit facility); a plaintiff with no expert and no identified malfunction or known hazard will lose at summary judgment.
“a plaintiff must put on expert testimony to establish what the standard of care is if the subject in question is so distinctly related to some science, profession or occupation as to be beyond the ken of the average layperson.”
Suing the wrong federal defendants is fatal to standing: officials/agencies that have completed or never had a role in the challenged process cannot redress the injury, so claims against them are dismissed for lack of traceability.
“Because Plaintiff's injuries cannot be traced to any of these agencies, Plaintiff lacks standing as to them.”
Motion outcomes
Counted from classified signed orders only. Percentages are shown only where the sample is large enough to be meaningful; smaller samples are reported as raw counts.
| Summary judgment N = 4 |
Granted: 1Granted in part: 1Denied: 1Moot / procedural: 1 | counts only |
| Motions to dismiss N = 2 |
Granted: 2 | counts only |
A "1 of 1" is one ruling, not a tendency. Treat small samples as illustrative, not predictive.
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“For the foregoing reasons, Defendant's motion for summary judgment is granted.”
“For the foregoing reasons, Defendant's Motion to Dismiss is granted, and the court dismisses this action.”
“For the foregoing reasons, Defendants' Motion to Dismiss, ECF No. 4, is granted and Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment, ECF No. 6, is denied as moot.”
“Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment, ECF No. 6, is denied as moot.”
“the court grants in part and denies in part Plaintiffs' Motion for Summary Judgment, ECF No. 24”
“denies Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, ECF No. 26”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Sampled recent assignments (filed 2026, all pending) are heavy on FOIA (Dave v. CBP, Gov't Accountability & Oversight v. Treasury, WildEarth Guardians v. Interior) and immigration (Lemmon v. USCIS, Ocampo Cambrai v. Mullin, Lu v. Mullin), plus Medicare-recovery contract (Good Samaritan Hospital v. Kennedy) and other agency matters. This is a qualitative character sample, NOT a counted nature-of-suit distribution.