Ross A. Walters
How Judge Walters decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
Walters strictly enforces the local summary-judgment record rules. In Valdivia he treated the defendants' Statement of Undisputed Facts as admitted because the plaintiffs did not respond to it under Local Rule 56.1(b), which materially drove the grant. Practical lesson for counsel before him: file a complete LR 56.1 response or risk the movant's facts being deemed admitted.
“Plaintiffs have not filed a response to the Statement of Undisputed Facts filed by defendants in support of the motion and therefore by local rule the undisputed facts put forward by defendants are deemed admitted. LR 56.1(b).”
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 = 4 |
Granted: 2Granted in part: 1Denied: 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.
“Defendants' motion for summary judgment is granted as to all remaining counts. The Clerk of Court shall enter judgment dismissing the complaint. IT IS SO ORDERED.”
“the Court concludes defendant's motion for summary judgment should be granted as to all counts of the Complaint. The Clerk shall enter judgment of dismissal. Motion granted. IT IS SO ORDERED.”
“defendant's motion is denied in part and granted in part. The motion is granted with respect to plaintiff's claims under the Iowa blacklisting statute and for tortious interference with a prospective contractual relationship. The motion is denied with respect to the ... Iowa Com[mon-law claim]”
“the Court concludes genuine issues of material fact exist which preclude summary judgment in Kliffs favor on either the Complaint or counterclaim. Kliffs motion for summary judgment is therefore denied. IT IS SO ORDERED.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median case duration in the sampled dockets: 400 days (N = 16).
Median motion-to-ruling time: 78 days (N = 1).
Sample of 21 dockets that docket lists with Ross A. Walters as assigned judge (consent civil + SS appeals + a few miscellaneous/criminal-magistrate matters), filed 2010-2016. Nature-of-suit mix below is from case-level metadata; 4 mc/mj administrative-subpoena and petty-criminal matters are excluded from the civil duration sample.