Susan Oki Mollway
How Judge Mollway decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
On competing summary-judgment motions in an insurance-coverage dispute, the judge would not invalidate a policy exclusion as against public policy absent a specific statute setting mandatory requirements for that type of coverage and a public policy traceable to that statute -- a generalized 'compensate all accident victims' argument was not enough.
“For this court to find the resident relative exclusion in the umbrella policy invalid on public policy grounds, Ritchey and Alexandra would have to show that there is a statute giving rise to a public policy that is contravened by the exclusion. They have not done so.”
On a Clean Water Act citizen suit, the judge applied the Supreme Court's multi-factor 'functional equivalent' test literally and added her own volume-of-pollutant factor, finding a permit was required even setting that added factor aside once the undisputed record showed a large daily discharge reaching monitored ocean seeps.
“The court would reach this same conclusion even if it did not consider the raw-volume-of-pollutant factor. Summary judgment is therefore granted in favor of Plaintiffs and against the County.”
Procedural preferences
On a Rule 59(e)/Rule 4(m) service-timing dismissal motion, the judge exercised broad discretion to excuse a short, explained delay in service rather than dismiss, focused on actual prejudice to the defendant rather than the bare fact of a missed deadline.
“Defendants identify no specific faded memory or lost evidence. Indeed, it is unlikely that Plaintiff's two-month delay in service resulted in material fading of memories or a loss of evidence.”
The judge holds litigants -- including pro se parties -- firmly to scheduling-order deadlines in older cases, declining to reopen a long-passed expert-disclosure cutoff even where opposing counsel's summary-judgment motion consumed the party's attention just before the deadline.
“Most attorneys can walk and chew gum at the same time and usually have more than one case that they're juggling at the same time, so I'm not persuaded.”
Reviewing a magistrate judge's remand recommendation over an objection, the judge adopted and supplemented the finding that the fraudulent-joinder analysis at removal, not later procedural developments, controls whether remand is proper.
“MDG did not fraudulently join Chen, and its failure to file an amended complaint was not tantamount to a voluntary dismissal of Chen for purposes of removal.”
Cautions
In a prisoner civil-rights case, a pro se plaintiff's own filing delays did not excuse missing the deadline to add a party, and general trial-continuance requests were denied without prejudice pending resolution of the underlying dispositive motion, rather than granted preemptively.
“To the extent Marten seeks a continuance of trial, the court DENIES the request to continue trial at this time, without prejudice to revisiting this matter at a later date. How the court rules on the pending summary judgment motion may affect any future request.”
In a compassionate-release motion, the judge required a genuinely extraordinary and compelling combination of circumstances -- sentence length, rehabilitation, and family hardship each considered but none individually or jointly sufficient -- rather than treating post-sentencing regret or general hardship studies as a basis for release.
“The passage of time is not an 'extraordinary and compelling reason' to reduce his sentence. Acuna may now regret having rejected plea offers, but that does not create an 'extraordinary and compelling reason' to reduce his sentence.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“Because Joseph's appeal does not involve an appealable collateral order, this court denies his motion to stay his case pending the outcome of his appeal.”
“This court lacks subject matter jurisdiction, as the Declaratory Judgment Act does not confer independent federal jurisdiction. Plaintiffs do not raise a federal question and do not even allege diversity jurisdiction. ... The motion to dismiss is accordingly GRANTED.”
“The motion to dismiss is denied without a hearing pursuant to Local Rule 7.2(d).”
“This action is DISMISSED for lack of jurisdiction.”
“the court denies Aga's December 22, 2009, Rule 59(e) motion, which Aga filed as a motion to enlarge the time to file an opposition to the Government's motion for summary judgment and motion to set aside the order granting summary judgment.”
“The court also denies as moot Aga's December 29, 2009, motion for summary judgment in favor of Aga.”
“Default judgment is granted in favor of Oates for $629,434.45. Default judgment is granted in favor of Waibel for $432,410.11. Default judgment is granted in favor of JLH for $2,474,021.94. Default judgment is granted in favor of Deal for $383,867.09.”
“Defendants have moved for clarification or reconsideration of the part of the order that declined to dismiss the claim for the return of or compensation for the seized cannabis under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. See Docket No. 35. That motion is denied.”
“this court denies Frost-Tsuji's motion to continue the dispositive motions set for hearing on October 28, 2014.”
“Joe Hand's motion for partial summary judgment is denied.”
“the "Findings and Recommendation to Grant Motion for Default Judgment Against Third Party Defendant Allen Wakai as to Third Party Complaint" are adopted as the opinion and order of this Court.”
“the court now determines that, with the exceptions stated below, the individuals identified by Plaintiffs in their filing of September 19, 2016, are the only individuals included in the class. The court also closes the class.”
“This court denies Saenz's motion under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2255 and declines to issue a certificate of appealability.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median motion-to-ruling time: 39 days (N = 6).
The sampled dockets spanned prisoner civil-rights suits, employment discrimination and ADA claims, consumer credit (FCRA) disputes, insurance-coverage declaratory actions, contract and default-judgment collections matters, and a removed insurance case remanded to state court. Several sampled cases ended in voluntary dismissal or stipulated settlement rather than a contested ruling, consistent with a civil docket where most cases resolve before judgment; her final new case assignments, in 2024, were petitions for writs of coram nobis and mandamus.
Put Judge Mollway's record to work
Ezel drafts and answers grounded in this exact profile: how Judge Mollway actually rules, not a generic AI guess.
Opens in Ezel Pro. Every answer is grounded in Judge Mollway's own signed orders and cites them.