Jon Stuart Scoles
How Judge Scoles decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In APA record-review of agency action, Scoles deferred to EPA's statutory reading: waters whose quality impairment is not caused by a 'pollutant' need not appear on the Clean Water Act Section 303(d) impaired-waters list -- a deference-to-the-agency disposition that resolved the case for the government.
“The [c]ourt concludes that EPA properly determined that where the water quality impairment is not caused by pollutants, the water need not be included on the Section 303(d) list.”
Procedural preferences
On objections to his R&Rs, the district judge's de novo review of Scoles' work tends to leave his findings intact: where the only objection targets a statement the court reads as dicta (an illustrative example, not a holding), the objection does not disturb the recommendation and the R&R is adopted in full.
“Because the specific statement at issue was used merely in the context of an example -- not in the context of a holding or finding -- it has no bearing on the outcome of the case and is considered dicta. ... the court shall adopt Judge Scoles's December 17, 2007 Report and Recommendation.”
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.
| Apa merits review N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Summary judgment N = 1 |
Granted in part: 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 hereby ADOPTS the Report and Recommendation (docket no. 48) and DISMISSES the Complaint (Docket no. 1).”
“ORDER granting in part and denying in part 19 Motion for Summary Judgment. Signed by Magistrate Judge Jon S Scoles on 3/5/10.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Consent (636(c)) civil dockets where Scoles was the assigned/final judge (case-level metadata; durations = filed -> terminated). Nature-of-suit mix skews to Social Security appeals plus insurance / personal-injury / tax / product-liability civil cases -- the classic consent-magistrate civil portfolio.