Bonnie W. David
How Judge David decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
She looks past a party's mislabeled or missing legal theory to the substance of what actually happened, particularly when a pro se or unsophisticated litigant has not used the correct legal terminology.
“Plaintiff repudiated the Installment Contract on December 5, 2020, when he informed the Motscos 'point-blank' that he had 'no intention' of settling on the Property.”
In forum-selection and jurisdiction disputes, she looks closely at a party's actual litigation conduct rather than its post-hoc characterization of it -- pursuing a case in one forum for months, taking discovery, and answering pleadings there speaks louder than a later claim that a different forum was always intended.
“Plaintiff clearly and unequivocally relinquished its rights under the Exclusive Jurisdiction Provision by pursuing nearly identical claims in Florida Court for seven months before eventually deciding to bring those claims in Delaware instead.”
On requests for an extraordinary equitable remedy like specific performance or a preliminary injunction, she requires the moving party to show it has no adequate remedy at law, and is skeptical when a request framed as equitable relief is, in substance, a demand for money.
“In reality, it is not the ability to 'make claims,' but the payment of funds due under the TPP Plan, that customers seek.”
Procedural preferences
She reads narrow, specifically-worded arbitration or dispute-resolution carve-outs narrowly, declining to let a broader label in an adjacent contract provision expand a carefully limited arbitration clause.
“Defendant's attempt to read a broader scope into Section 10.10(ii) fails to give meaning to all language of the contract.”
She closely scrutinizes restrictive covenants (noncompetes) for reasonable duration and geographic scope and will not blue-pencil an overbroad covenant into an enforceable one where doing so would require the court to draft a new bargain the parties never struck.
“The Noncompete is facially unenforceable due to its unreasonable duration and geographic scope. ... [T]he Court declines to exercise its discretionary power to blue pencil the Noncompete.”
In a fiduciary-duty/stockholder-franchise dispute, she distinguishes carefully between a board's valid business judgment and a defensive tactic aimed at controlling the outcome of a contested election, even while she is willing to separately uphold a board's technical, properly-supported application of its own advance-notice bylaw.
“Ionic's directors breached their fiduciary duties by reducing the size of the Board, not for a valid corporate purpose, but as an inequitable defensive measure.”
Cautions
As a Magistrate, she was quick to catch a stockholder trying to use a books-and-records demand to get information he could otherwise only obtain through the normal discovery process of a lawsuit he had already filed over the same underlying conduct.
“Using Section 220 inspections to investigate pending plenary claims undermines well-established discovery law.”
She will not let a litigant invoke equity to undo a scheme that litigant designed and orchestrated in the first place, applying the unclean-hands doctrine even where the underlying transaction was later found invalid on other grounds.
“Darren seeks relief for a scheme that he orchestrated and then sought to defend. ... In equity, Darren cannot seek relief from individuals who merely carried out his own wishes.”
In departing-employee/solicitation disputes, she looks for concrete evidence of misuse of confidential information (or its absence) rather than assuming bad intent from the fact of a coordinated group departure.
“Shulick's list included less than a dozen clients, undermining any suggestion that he intentionally brought confidential client information with him to Customers Bank.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“The petition fails to plead good cause for the appointment of a receiver because it does not allege facts supporting an inference that (1) the dissolved corporation has undistributed property that a receiver could marshal or (2) the dissolved corporation wrongfully distributed assets at the time of dissolution. I therefore recommend that the motion to dismiss be granted and the petition be dismissed.”
“For the reasons explained above, I recommend that the motion to dismiss be granted and the 220 Complaint be dismissed with prejudice.”
“To the extent the Complaint purports to assert claims against JG, LLC, they are DISMISSED. ... Count I is DISMISSED. ... Counts III and V are DISMISSED. ... The Motion to Dismiss Count II is DENIED. ... The Motion to Dismiss Count IV is DENIED.”
“To summarize, both Motions are denied.”
“Plaintiff's request for an order of specific performance is, therefore, denied. ... Judgment is entered in Defendants' favor in the amount of $2,130.47.”
“For the reasons explained above, Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment is GRANTED, and Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment is DENIED. Judgment is entered for Defendant.”
“Balancing all the Cryo-Maid factors, I conclude that Delaware is not the appropriate forum. Accordingly, the Motion to Dismiss under Rule 12(b)(3) is granted.”
“For the reasons explained above, judgment is entered for Plaintiffs on Count I and aspects of Count IV, and an injunction will issue as set forth herein. Judgment is entered for Defendants on Count III.”
“The Complaint states a claim for violation of the Charter. It does not state a claim for violation of FOIA.”
“Darren's Counterclaims and Crossclaims are therefore dismissed.”
“The Complaint is dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, with leave to transfer to the Superior Court pursuant to 10 Del. C. Section 1902.”
“For reasons explained below, the plaintiff is entitled to targeted discovery into this theory.”
Put Judge David's record to work
Ezel drafts and answers grounded in this exact profile: how Judge David actually rules, not a generic AI guess.
Opens in Ezel Pro. Every answer is grounded in Judge David's own signed orders and cites them.