Chauncey A. Bratt
How Judge Bratt rules, drawn from 14 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
About Judge Bratt
Chauncey A. Bratt has served as a United States Magistrate Judge in the Orlando Division of the Middle District of Florida since July 2026. The court’s Board of Judges appointed him to an eight year term beginning August 1, 2026.
Judge Bratt's practices and standing orders
The court's website lists no individual practices or standing orders of Judge Bratt's own (checked October 14, 2026), so the court's local rules and general orders are the place to look (court page ↗).
Standing orders for every case in this court
Orders the court applies to all of its cases, whichever judge has them, as published on the court's website (checked October 10, 2026).
How Judge Bratt decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In a Social Security appeal, he remanded when the administrative decision did not adequately explain its assessment of a treating physician’s opinion.
“The Court finds that the ALJ failed to adequately consider the consistency factor in weighing the opinions of at least one of Plaintiff’s treating physicians.”
Procedural preferences
A party seeking reconsideration of a procedural order must identify a recognized basis, such as new evidence or clear error.
“Plaintiff thus has not met his burden of establishing ‘clear error’ or ‘manifest injustice’ of the sort that would provide the extraordinary remedy of reconsideration of the Court’s prior Order.”
In a discovery dispute, he required production under the federal relevance and proportionality standard despite objections grounded in European data protection law.
“Defendant’s GDPR objection, including objections made regarding the data- minimization principle, a GDPR-based interpretation of ‘necessary’, and third-party confidentiality objections related to the GDPR, are overruled in light of the Confidentiality Agreement, and the Court finds these objections do not form independent bases for Defendant to withhold responsive documents or condition production on a showing beyond that required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26.”
Cautions
He required proof of effective service before a clerk’s default and deferred default judgments while other defendants actively contested the case.
“Before the clerk may enter default, he or she must determine that effective service has been made on the defaulting defendant because, without effective service, there is no jurisdiction and no obligation to answer or otherwise defend.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“The Commissioner’s final decision in this case is AFFIRMED;”
“Electronically through CM/ECF (Doc. 17) is DENIED without prejudice.”
“Motion for Alternative Service of Process upon Defendant Jaritza Pacheco (Doc. 83) is DENIED without prejudice.”
“the Motion (Doc. 43) is GRANTED.”
“Defendants’ Motion to Compel Arbitration and Stay Proceedings (Doc. 15) is GRANTED.”
“Plaintiffs’ Short-Form Motion to Compel (Doc. 50) is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART.”
“The final decision of the Commissioner is REVERSED and REMANDED for further proceedings pursuant to sentence four of 42 U.S.C. § 405(g).”
“Renewed Joint Stipulated Motion to Approve Settlement Agreement and for Dismissal with Prejudice (Doc. 32) is GRANTED.”
“Accordingly, it is ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Renewed Motion for Preliminary Injunction (Doc. 116), which the Court construes as a motion for reconsideration, is DENIED.”
“Plaintiff’s Motion for Clerk’s Default against Danielle Alvarez (Doc. 71) is GRANTED. The Clerk is DIRECTED to enter default against Defendant Alvarez.”
“Plaintiff’s Motion for Clerk’s Default against Brian Donald White (Doc. 72) is DENIED without prejudice.”
“Plaintiff’s Motion for Clerk’s Default against Orlando Hand Surgery Associates (Doc. 73) is DENIED without prejudice.”
“Plaintiff’s Motion for Clerk’s Default against Julie Hunsaker, Megan Watson, April Holsman, and One Call, Inc. (Doc. 94) is DENIED without prejudice.”
“Plaintiff’s motions for default judgment (Docs. 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, and 100) are each DENIED without prejudice.”
“Upon consideration, the Motion will be granted in part and denied in part.”
“Upon consideration, the Motion will be granted in part and denied in part.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median motion-to-ruling time: 8.0 days (N = 22).
The ten reviewed dockets include Social Security appeals, a wage and hour settlement, a Miller Act dispute, contract discovery, postjudgment enforcement, a civil rights case, a land tort case, and procedural matters. Ten default requests arose in one case. This selected sample does not describe the full caseload.
How long civil cases take in this court
For the whole of United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, not for Judge Bratt: median time from filing to disposition of the civil cases the court closed in the 12 months ending September 30, 2025, as reported by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
| Cases | Median time | |
|---|---|---|
| All civil cases closed | 6,896 | 5.5 months |
| Closed with no court action | 49 | 3.5 months |
| Closed before pretrial | 6,492 | 5.2 months |
| Closed during or after pretrial | 319 | 14.7 months |
| Closed during trial | 36 | 24.2 months |
| 12 months ending | Cases closed | Median time |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | 6,896 | 5.5 months |
| Sep 2024 | 7,115 | 5.6 months |
| Sep 2023 | 6,777 | 5.5 months |
| Sep 2022 | 6,781 | 6.7 months |
| Sep 2021 | 6,749 | 6.2 months |
| Sep 2020 | 6,392 | 6.2 months |
| Sep 2019 | 6,830 | 5.7 months |
The table leaves out prisoner petitions, land condemnations, deportation reviews, recovery of overpayments and enforcement of judgments, and reports no median for fewer than 10 cases. A district that closed a large multidistrict litigation in the period shows very large counts and long medians for that year. Source: Table C-5, U.S. District Courts (spreadsheet).
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