Nancy Torresen
How Judge Torresen rules, drawn from 17 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
About Judge Torresen
Nancy Torresen is a judge of the United States District Court for the District of Maine. Appointed by President Barack Obama, Judge Torresen received a commission on October 4, 2011. Judge Torresen assumed senior status on October 11, 2025.
Judge Torresen's practices and standing orders
The court's website lists no individual practices or standing orders of Judge Torresen's own (checked October 9, 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 9, 2026).
How Judge Torresen decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In an employment-disability case, the judge found that specific circumstantial evidence, an employer manager's own recorded statements linking a worker's emotional reaction to her recent surgery and questioning whether she should keep working, was enough to let a disability-discrimination claim reach a jury, even where the employer's official position was that no disability was ever considered.
“Merry told Mullen that 'maybe this isn't the right time for you at New Balance because what you explained about the working environment and instructions from your trainer should not have set you off as it did'... a jury could conclude based on this evidence that the Defendant regarded Mullen as having a mental or physical impairment.”
On a request to enjoin a former business owner from competing after selling his company, the judge treated the covenant's stated multi-continent scope skeptically once the record showed the actual business only operated in a handful of U.S. states and Canadian provinces, rather than accepting a contract recital of intended future expansion at face value.
“On this record, the best I can tell is that Compass did not actually operate in the vast majority of the non-compete's geographic scope at the time of sale (Europe, Africa, South America, Central America, Australia, New Zealand, parts of the United States, and parts of Canada)... the non-compete is not likely reasonable in its geographic scope and temporal duration.”
In assessing a First Amendment challenge to a state cable-pricing law, the judge gave weight to the government's own candid concession at oral argument that its factual record might be insufficient, rather than requiring the challengers to affirmatively disprove the law's rationale.
“The State candidly conceded at oral argument that 'there may well not be enough in the . . . factual record at this point for us to have met our burden.' ... I conclude that the Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their First Amendment claim.”
Procedural preferences
In Joy v. Rushmore Loan Management Services, she denied the plaintiff's summary-judgment motion after finding that a single conclusory sentence did not develop the argument needed to evaluate her FDCPA claim.
“The Plaintiff devotes one conclusory sentence to this issue... it is incumbent upon the moving party to make its case in its briefing. Without the benefit of a developed argument from the Plaintiff, I cannot evaluate the merits of her FDCPA claim.”
In Advantage Payroll Services v. Rode, Torresen declined Colorado River abstention after finding that parallel litigation and its duplication of effort did not overcome the balance favoring federal jurisdiction.
“The balance [is] heavily weighted in favor of the exercise of jurisdiction... I am not convinced that the duplication of efforts resulting from the parallel litigation weighs in favor of abstention.”
In Floyd v. Waldo County, she adopted the magistrate judge's recommended dismissal after the objection period expired without any objection.
“The time within which to file objections has expired, and no objections have been filed. The Magistrate Judge notified the parties that failure to object would waive their right to de novo review and appeal. It is therefore ORDERED that the Recommended Decision of the Magistrate Judge is hereby ADOPTED.”
Cautions
In this pro se case, Torresen adopted a recommendation to dismiss after the plaintiff responded to the motions more than seventy days past the local-rule deadline; she rejected his objection based on disability and homelessness.
“'[W]hile pro se litigants are accorded a certain degree of latitude,' the Plaintiff's pro se status 'does not excuse him from complying with . . . the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Court's Local Rules.'”
In McKenna v. Maine Department of Health and Human Services, she dismissed the plaintiffs' ADA Title II damages claim against the state agency because they had not shown a relevant pattern of constitutional violations sufficient to overcome sovereign immunity.
“The Plaintiffs have not carried their burden on this first City of Boerne step... Because the Plaintiffs fail to identify a history or pattern of constitutional violations in the provision of state services, the third City of Boerne step requires little discussion.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“It is therefore ORDERED that the Recommended Decision of the Magistrate Judge is hereby ADOPTED. The Defendants' motion to dismiss (ECF No. 9) is GRANTED and the Plaintiff's complaint (ECF No. 1) is DISMISSED with prejudice.”
“It is therefore ORDERED that the Magistrate Judge's Recommended Decision to grant the Defendants' motion to dismiss is hereby ADOPTED for the reasons stated in that Recommended Decision and for the additional reasons above.”
“Because the Plaintiffs have not demonstrated that DHHS's conduct violated the Fourteenth Amendment, I move on to the third step... Therefore, Congress did not validly abrogate state sovereign immunity, and the Plaintiffs' Title II claim must be dismissed. ... For the reasons stated above, the Court GRANTS the Defendant's Motion to Dismiss the Plaintiffs' Complaint (ECF No. 8).”
“Absent federal jurisdiction, I therefore dismiss the MHRA claim, without prejudice, so that the Plaintiffs may seek relief in state court.”
“For the reasons stated above, the Court DENIES the Defendant's motion for summary judgment and DENIES the Plaintiff's motion for partial summary judgment.”
“For the reasons stated above, the Court DENIES the Plaintiff's motion for summary judgment.”
“For the reasons stated above, I DENY Huber's motion for a temporary restraining order and/or preliminary injunction (ECF No. 4).”
“For the reasons stated above, the Court DENIES the Defendant's motion for partial summary judgment.”
“It is therefore ORDERED that the Recommended Decision of the Magistrate Judge is hereby ADOPTED. The Petitioner's Motion to Vacate, Set Aside, or Correct sentence is DENIED (ECF nos. 158 and 163) and the Petitioner's motion for habeas relief is DISMISSED. No certificate of appealability shall issue because there is no substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2).”
“For the reasons stated above, I DENY the Plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunction (ECF No. 14) on their preemption claim (Count I).”
“I GRANT Plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction on their First Amendment claim (Count II).”
“For the reasons stated above, the Court GRANTS the Defendants' motion to compel arbitration and DISMISSES this case.”
“It is therefore ORDERED that the Recommended Decision of the Magistrate Judge is hereby ADOPTED and the Plaintiff's complaint is DISMISSED.”
“Finally, because I agree with the Magistrate Judge and conclude that the Plaintiff's complaint must be dismissed, the Plaintiff's remaining two motions -- the motion seeking federal court jurisdiction, Mr. Torre's immediate release, and the return of his minor children (ECF No. 6); and the motion to remove the assistant district attorney from the Plaintiff's cases (ECF No. 16) -- are hereby DENIED AS MOOT.”
“Having found the Jensen Baird Defendants' preclusion arguments to be unsupported, I DENY their motion to dismiss.”
“For the reasons stated above, the Court DENIES the Jensen Baird Defendants' motion to dismiss and DENIES Defendant Moulton's motion for judgment on the pleadings.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Her general docket includes mortgage foreclosures, insurance-coverage disputes, employment and disability-discrimination claims, Social Security appeals, prisoner and pro se civil-rights suits, habeas petitions, business/trade-secret disputes, and a substantial criminal caseload, drawn from across Maine's divisions.
Pending matters in the official report
Judge Torresen was last listed in the Civil Justice Reform Act report as of September 30, 2025.
| Motions pending more than six months | 0 |
| Bench trials submitted more than six months | 0 |
| Bankruptcy appeals pending more than six months | 0 |
| Social Security appeals pending more than six months | 0 |
| Civil cases pending more than three years | 0 |
| Report | Motions over six months | Cases over three years |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar 2025 | 0 | 2 |
| Sep 2024 | 3 | 2 |
| Mar 2024 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2023 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar 2023 | 0 | 1 |
| Sep 2022 | 0 | 2 |
| Mar 2022 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2021 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar 2021 | 0 | 1 |
| Sep 2020 | 5 | 0 |
A snapshot on that date: matters listed may since have been decided or reassigned. A motion referred to a magistrate judge is counted for both judges. Motions in multidistrict litigation, section 2255 cases and Social Security appeals are not counted, and a very large three-year count is generally a multidistrict docket. Source: Appendix A of the report (PDF); about the report.
How long civil cases take in this court
For the whole of U.S. District Court for the District of Maine, not for Judge Torresen: 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 | 464 | 6.2 months |
| Closed with no court action | 149 | 4.9 months |
| Closed before pretrial | 290 | 6.7 months |
| Closed during or after pretrial | 22 | 20 months |
| Closed during trial | 3 | not reported |
| 12 months ending | Cases closed | Median time |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | 464 | 6.2 months |
| Sep 2024 | 409 | 8 months |
| Sep 2023 | 388 | 8.1 months |
| Sep 2022 | 397 | 8.8 months |
| Sep 2021 | 459 | 9.6 months |
| Sep 2020 | 390 | 8.6 months |
| Sep 2019 | 506 | 7.8 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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