Thomas F. Hogan
How Judge Hogan decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
He treats settled circuit precedent and his own prior rulings on the identical question as controlling: where the D.C. Circuit's framework and his 1996 decision already resolved whether an RLA union must bargain nationally, the same answer follows decades later, and he grants summary judgment on that basis rather than relitigating.
“Still bound to apply Atlantic Coast Line as the law of this Circuit, and for the reasons set forth below, the Court holds that BMWED is again required to bargain on a national basis with the railway coalition with respect to all issues in the current wage and rules movement that commenced on November 1, 2019.”
On summary judgment he enforces the non-movant's burden strictly: a party cannot defeat a well-supported motion by describing what an expert 'will' say or by relying on counsel's characterizations -- it must point to actual record evidence, and an expert report that never addresses the dispositive issue creates no genuine dispute.
“His description of what his expert’s testimony will be does not replace the record evidence needed to survive a motion for summary judgment. ... Counsel’s claims that an expert will testify to a given fact does not create a genuine dispute of material facts sufficient to survive a motion for summary judgment.”
Procedural preferences
He insists on administrative exhaustion before judicial review: in FOIA he will grant the agency summary judgment where the requester never administratively appealed a pre-suit response, and in D.C. employment disputes he dismisses for failure to invoke the exclusive CMPA grievance process, treating informal contacts and delay as no substitute for a formal grievance.
“Defendant United States Secret Service has moved to dismiss ... or for summary judgment ... on the basis that Plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies before filing suit. ... Defendant’s motion will be granted.”
He holds litigants to Local Civil Rule 7(h): a summary-judgment non-movant who files no separate statement of disputed facts risks having the movant's facts deemed admitted, though he will exercise discretion to reach the merits where the filings are not voluminous and a single issue is dispositive.
“The plaintiff did not submit a separate statement setting forth the material facts that he disputes, violating Local Civil Rule 7(h) ... the Court ... “is to deem as admitted the moving party’s facts that are uncontroverted by the nonmoving party’s Rule [7(h)] statement.””
In APA review he draws a clean line between an agency's reviewable individual decisions and its unreviewable overall administrative scheme, allowing a challenge to proceed only as to the former (here, individual USDA license-renewal decisions vs. the renewal process itself).
“while PETA may not challenge the USDA’s overall process for approving license renewals, individual renewal decisions are reviewable.”
Cautions
This 9-opinion, N=13-motion sample is small and docket records-surfaced, and it skews DEFENDANT/MOVANT-FAVORABLE (government FOIA/sanctions/FCA wins, defense summary judgments, denials of individual plaintiffs' procedural motions). It is NOT a merits tendency and should not be read as a grant rate. It also does not capture some of this judge's most consequential work, including his Guantanamo Bay habeas rulings (e.g., the 2010 Al Madhwani ruling suppressing coerced confessions), his role as Chief Judge coordinating the Guantanamo detainee litigation, his service as Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, and his FISC presiding judgeship.
“In January 2010, Hogan ruled against the government’s introduction of evidence against Musa’ab Omar Al Madhwani, a terrorism detainee, on the grounds his confessions were coerced before he became a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay.”
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 = 7 |
Granted: 5Denied: 2 | counts only |
| Motions to dismiss N = 2 |
Granted: 1Granted in part: 1 | counts only |
| Motion to supplement record N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Motion for reconsideration N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Motion for leave to amend N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Motions to strike 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 Court will grant the Carrier’s Motion for Summary Judgment [ECF No. 29] and deny BMWED’s Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment [ECF No. 30].”
“the Court will grant the Carrier’s Motion for Summary Judgment [ECF No. 29] and deny BMWED’s Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment [ECF No. 30].”
“the motion will be denied and a briefing schedule for dispositive motions will be set.”
“while PETA may not challenge the USDA’s overall process for approving license renewals, individual renewal decisions are reviewable. Upon such review, this Court will grant in part and deny in part the USDA’s motion to dismiss.”
“For the reasons that follow, the Court will deny the motion to reconsider with prejudice, and the motion for leave to amend without prejudice.”
“For the reasons that follow, the Court will deny the motion to reconsider with prejudice, and the motion for leave to amend without prejudice.”
“Defendant United States Secret Service has moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) ... or for summary judgment under Rule 56, on the basis that Plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies before filing suit. ... For the reasons explained below, Defendant’s motion will be granted.”
“For the following reasons, the Court will grant Defendants’ motion and dismiss the amended complaint.”
“The Court will dismiss Mr. Hejeij’s delay and Fifth Amendment claims and grant summary judgment on all other claims.”
“the Court grants Defendants NCO Financial Systems, Inc.’s and Transworld Systems, Inc.’s Motion for Summary Judgment [ECF No. 47] and Defendant Mitchell Rubenstein & Associates, P.C.’s Motion for Summary Judgment [ECF No. 48], and denies Plaintiff’s Motion for Partial Summary Judgment ...”
“denies Plaintiff’s Motion for Partial Summary Judgment for Liability Against Transworld Systems, Inc. and NCO Financial Systems, Inc. [ECF No. 52] and Plaintiff’s Motion for Partial Summary Judgment for Liability Against Mitchell Rubenstein & Associates, P.C. [ECF No. 53].”
“For the forgoing reasons, the Court shall grant Plasser’s motion for summary judgment, and deny plaintiff’s motion to strike.”
“For the forgoing reasons, the Court shall grant Plasser’s motion for summary judgment, and deny plaintiff’s motion to strike.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
From the reasoning-layer sample (NOT a counted distribution): his D.D.C. docket spanned the full range of a generalist trial judge over 40+ years -- Railway Labor Act / labor (Alton & Southern Railway v. BMWED), Medicare and other APA agency-review (Loma Linda v. Burwell; PETA v. Perdue), FOIA (Gunter v. Secret Service), national-security sanctions (Hejeij v. Gacki -- OFAC SDGT), False Claims Act qui tam (Adams v. Dell), consumer/FDCPA (Michaels v. NCO), product-liability tort (Smith v. Holland), D.C.-employment (Lucas v. D.C.), civil forfeiture (United States v. $189,880.00; United States v. One 1998 Chevrolet), antitrust MDL (In re Lorazepam & Clorazepate Antitrust Litigation), and federal criminal/narcotics matters. As Chief Judge (2001-2008) he coordinated the Guantanamo Bay detainee habeas cases and later issued individual detainee rulings; he also served on the FISC (2009-2016, presiding 2014-2016).