Nancy Ellen Brasel
How Judge Brasel decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
Brasel will not enforce a contractual ADR/mediation clause as a bar to litigation unless it unambiguously makes the ADR step a condition precedent to suit. She reads such clauses strictly because they 'would divest a party of the right to have a court hear its claims,' and an internally inconsistent clause ('shall initiate a voluntary' mediation) does not clear that bar. A defendant moving to dismiss for failure to mediate should be able to point to express, unambiguous condition-precedent language.
“A contractual condition precedent must be expressly and unambiguously stated. ... the mediation provision uses mandatory and non-mandatory language, stating that the parties 'shall initiate a voluntary' mediation. The provision therefore does not unambiguously require the executive meeting and mediation before a party sues.”
Brasel applies a forgiving standard to LLC diversity pleading and to the amount-in-controversy at the motion-to-dismiss stage: an LLC need only plead the citizenship (not the address) of its members, and the plaintiff's good-faith damages claim controls unless the defendant proves to a legal certainty that it is below the jurisdictional minimum. A defendant attacking diversity jurisdiction with hyper-technical pleading objections (rather than a real citizenship or amount dispute) should expect the motion to fail.
“Rule 8 requires a 'short and plain statement of the grounds for the court's jurisdiction.' ... It does not require parties to plead a specific address. ... Focal Point offers no evidence to establish to a legal certainty that the claim is for less than $75,000.”
On a Rule 12(b)(6) motion Brasel declines to consider documents (beyond those embraced by the pleadings) that would convert the motion into one for summary judgment, preferring to test only the complaint's plausibility and leave factual disputes for discovery. Counsel should not load a motion to dismiss with extrinsic evidence and expect the court to weigh it.
“The other documents are not fairly embraced by the pleadings and consideration of them would convert this motion to one for summary judgment. ... The Court declines to do so.”
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.
| Motions to dismiss N = 3 |
Granted: 1Denied: 1Moot / procedural: 1 | counts only |
| Summary judgment N = 2 |
Granted: 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.
“Focal Point, L.L.C.'s motion to dismiss (ECF No. 7) is DENIED.”
“The Motion to Dismiss (ECF No. 27) is GRANTED ; and ... This matter is DISMISSED with prejudice.”
“Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment [ECF No. 12] is DENIED;”
“Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment [ECF No. 16] is GRANTED; and ... This matter is DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE.”
“Respondent's motion to dismiss (ECF No. 21) is DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median motion-to-ruling time: 108 days (N = 1).
Only the Mlazgar docket was enumerated this session (the build prioritized grounding the reasoning-layer cases). Brasel's reasoning-layer cases span contract (MTSRA sales-rep), pro-se civil rights, Social Security appeals, and § 2254 habeas. A deepening pass should run search_dockets(assigned_judge='Brasel') with filed_before windows to characterize the nature-of-suit mix and sample older terminated civil cases for dispositive-motion outcomes and latency.