John D. Bates
How Judge Bates decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In APA review he holds agencies to the State Farm rule that an action must be upheld on the basis the agency actually articulated: a later memo that merely repackages already-rejected reasons, or supplies a brand-new rationale for the first time, cannot rescue a flawed decision. This drove both the DACA-rescission vacatur and the 'gender ideology' webpage-takedown vacatur.
“because “an agency’s action must be upheld, if at all, on the basis articulated by the agency itself,” Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass’n ... v. State Farm ... DHS also cannot rely on new reasons that it now articulates for the first time. The government’s attempt to thread this needle fails.”
He distinguishes the lawfulness of a policy from the lawfulness of its implementation: even where the President's underlying policy choice is permissible, an agency's execution is still cabined by its APA obligations (notice, reasoned decisionmaking), and procedural shortcuts in carrying out an executive order will be set aside.
“The problem here is not so much the underlying policy decision but rather compliance with the law in effectuating that decision. ... Because the agencies failed to adhere to those obligations here, the Court will vacate their directives.”
Procedural preferences
On preliminary injunctions he enforces the irreparable-harm requirement strictly and will withhold the 'extraordinary remedy' even when he shares the movants' substantive concerns, signaling that grave-sounding allegations are not a substitute for evidence of imminent, concrete harm before a merits ruling.
“Absent evidence those personnel will imminently misuse or publicly disclose that information, the Court cannot say that irreparable harm will clearly occur before the Court can make a final determination on the merits. ... the Court’s concerns are as grave as ever, and it stands ready to remedy plaintiffs’ harm should they ultimately succeed on the merits.”
He guards against piecemeal appeals: a Rule 54(b) certification will be denied where the resolved and remaining claims are not genuinely 'distinct,' reflecting a preference for resolving a whole case before sending any part to the court of appeals.
“Because the breach of contract claim is not a “distinct” claim within the meaning of Rule 54(b), and because the balance of sound judicial administration and of justice to the litigants does not favor entry of an order of final judgment prior to resolution of the remaining claim, the Court will deny Zaccari’s Rule 54(b) motion.”
He reads jurisdictional labels carefully and declines to treat a defense as 'jurisdictional' merely because a party styles it that way -- e.g., recharacterizing a university's Westfall official-immunity 'Rule 12(b)(1)' motion as a merits defense under Rule 12(b)(6), consistent with the Supreme Court's warnings against carelessly dubbing issues jurisdictional.
“courts treat official immunity as “an affirmative defense” justifying dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6), not Rule 12(b)(1). ... The Court will therefore treat GW’s purported immunity as a defense on the merits, not a limit on the Court’s jurisdiction.”
Cautions
This 11-opinion, N=13-motion sample is posture-diverse and reasonably balanced but small, and it does not fully capture some of this judge's most consequential work, which should be read alongside it: his March 2019 vacatur of the Labor Department's Association Health Plans rule (New York v. U.S. Dep't of Labor) under the APA/Chevron, the 2017 AARP v. EEOC wellness-program rulings, his service (2006-2013) and presiding judgeship (2009-2013) on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, his 2013-2015 tenure as Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, and a large, ongoing body of FSIA state-sponsor-of-terrorism damages litigation (e.g., the multi-year Cabrera/Zambon Afghanistan-attack dockets) only one slice of which is sampled here.
“On August 3, 2018, Bates published a 25-page opinion ruling that the Trump administration must fully restore the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. ... On March 28, 2019, Bates published a 43-page opinion vacating a Trump administration rule designed to expand association health plans (AHP).”
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 = 6 |
Granted: 3Granted in part: 2Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Motions to dismiss N = 3 |
Granted in part: 1Denied: 2 | counts only |
| Preliminary injunction N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Default judgment N = 1 |
Granted in part: 1 | counts only |
| Motion to revise N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Motion for entry of judgment N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | 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.
“The motion to revise the Court’s April 2018 order will therefore be denied, and the Court’s vacatur of DACA’s rescission will stand.”
“Because the agencies failed to adhere to those obligations here, the Court will vacate their directives.”
“At this time, however, the extraordinary remedy of a preliminary injunction is not warranted.”
“For the reasons explained below, the Court disagrees and will accordingly grant the Agency’s motion for summary judgment and deny HSS’s motion for summary judgment.”
“the Court disagrees and will accordingly grant the Agency’s motion for summary judgment and deny HSS’s motion for summary judgment.”
“the Court will grant in part and deny in part each of the parties’ motions, granting summary judgment for defendants and intervenors on all but one claim.”
“the Court will grant in part and deny in part each of the parties’ motions, granting summary judgment for defendants and intervenors on all but one claim.”
“For the reasons discussed below, the Court will deny Eaves’s motion.”
“The Court now resolves a motion for default judgment by another 197 plaintiffs. It grants the motion for and awards damages to those plaintiffs whose claims the Court has power to adjudicate.”
“the Court will deny Zaccari’s Rule 54(b) motion. Furthermore, the Court will deny as moot Zaccari’s motion to stay proceedings pending appeal.”
“Before the Court are Daily Caller’s motion to dismiss and motion to refer RWM’s copyright registrations to the Register of Copyrights. For the reasons that follow, the Court will deny both motions.”
“The Court will grant summary judgment to DHS on the second basis.”
“the university’s motion to dismiss on the ground of official immunity succeeds in disposing of Kumar’s claim for tortious interference with business relations, but there is no immunity as to his other four claims. And his tortious invasion of privacy claims must be dismissed for failure to state a claim. But the university’s motion to dismiss will be denied in part because Kumar has pled sufficient facts to state a claim for breach of contract and breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
From the search_dockets case-level enumeration plus the reasoning-layer sample (NOT a counted distribution): his currently-assigned docket is APA/agency-review heavy (American Historical Association v. Trump; Singh v. Rubio; Center for Biological Diversity v. Burgum) with international arbitration / FSIA award-enforcement matters (Telefonica, S.A. v. Republic of Colombia), First-Amendment/press cases against the administration (Freedom of the Press Foundation v. Trump), civil-rights challenges (American Alliance for Equal Rights v. Congressional Black Caucus Foundation), copyright (Strike 3 Holdings), antitrust class actions (Hunter v. Epiq Systems; Coughlan v. Angeion Group), Social Security appeals, habeas, and a steady stream of federal criminal matters (United States v. Vaughn; United States v. Lin). Nationally he is associated with the DACA-rescission litigation, the Association Health Plans rule vacatur, his FISC service and presiding judgeship, his tenure as Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, and an extensive FSIA state-sponsor-of-terrorism damages docket (Cabrera/Zambon v. Iran).