Anne C. Conway
How Judge Conway decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
Applies the Noerr-Pennington doctrine to immunize pre-litigation conduct: trademark cease-and-desist / demand letters to a competitor's distributors are petitioning activity protected from tort liability unless the plaintiff proves the 'sham exception' -- both that the activity was objectively baseless (no reasonable litigant could expect success) and subjectively intended to interfere rather than seek redress.
“the doctrine extends not only to petitioning of the judicial branch (i.e., filing a lawsuit), but also to acts reasonably attendant to litigation, such as demand letters.”
Procedural preferences
Strict on Rule 56 mechanics and the Case Management Order: a summary-judgment non-movant must specifically controvert each of the movant's stated undisputed facts and give pinpoint record citations. A bulk affidavit without pinpoint citations does not create a genuine dispute -- she will deem the movant's facts undisputed and decide without searching the record.
“Because SHR fails to properly address Ford's assertions of fact, the Court considers those facts undisputed.”
Will not relax court-ordered deadlines without a good-cause showing, even on a stipulation of counsel; deadlines set early in the case govern.
“To the extent the stipulation of counsel seeks relief from Court ordered deadlines it is denied. ... No good cause has been shown for an extension.”
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 = 2 |
Granted: 1Granted in part: 1 | counts only |
| Partial summary 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.
“ORDER granting 33 Motion for Partial Summary Judgment. Plaintiff Silverhorse Racing, LLC Complaint (Doc. No. 2) is dismissed.”
“Ford's Motor Company's Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 51) is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part. ... Ford is ORDERED to file a Proposed Order setting forth injunctive relief consistent with this Order”
“Silverhorse Racing, LLC's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (Doc. 54) is DENIED.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median case duration in the sampled dockets: 171 days (N = 20).
Median motion-to-ruling time: 214 days (N = 3).
From the Jan-2016 filing cohort: a high share of cases resolve by settlement at mediation (Kegler TCPA, Daly FMLA, Younan/Alvez ERISA all settled within ~3-6 months), alongside quick prisoner/IFP civil-rights and habeas dispositions (terminated in days to weeks) and a small number of fully-litigated commercial cases (Silverhorse trademark ran ~2 years to a permanent injunction). Mix: ERISA benefits (removed/diversity), TCPA, FLSA, trademark, prisoner civil rights / habeas, consumer credit, removed state-law contract/PI.