I. Leo Glasser
How Judge Glasser decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In sexual-harassment pleading he reads the conduct realistically: a single act of direct contact with an intimate body part can be severe enough to state a hostile-work-environment claim, and a same-sex 'sexual advance' carries the obvious implication of a homosexual advance, satisfying the 'because of sex' element at the pleading stage.
“Because “[d]irect contact with an intimate body part constitutes one of the most severe forms of sexual harassment,” ... and Reid has alleged that Sadowski on a single occasion “grabbed and squeezed” one of Reid's breasts, ... Reid has pleaded facts concerning unwanted sexual contact sufficient to defeat defendants' motion to dismiss.”
Procedural preferences
He polices subject-matter jurisdiction independently and will dismiss sua sponte if needed -- and applies the diversity rules strictly: a U.S./foreign dual citizen's U.S. citizenship controls, and a U.S. citizen domiciled abroad is a citizen of no state and cannot invoke 1332.
“the Court nevertheless has an independent obligation to ensure that it has subject matter jurisdiction, and must dismiss an action when it concludes that it lacks subject matter jurisdiction.”
He enforces judicial estoppel against a party that wins on one position and then takes the opposite: a patent licensee/licensor that argued before the PTAB that a covenant-not-to-sue eliminated the counterparty's declaratory-judgment standing is estopped from later pressing a royalty claim that depends on the contrary premise. He reads MedImmune and its progeny to mean a demand for royalties under a license is itself a 'charge of infringement' that creates declaratory standing.
“When Alexsam argued before the PTAB that the covenant not to sue eliminates MasterCard's standing for declaratory relief, it also necessarily took the position that the same covenant prohibits a claim for royalties under the license agreement. ... Alexsam is therefore judicially estopped from bringing a claim for royalties under the license agreement.”
Cautions
Do not try to manufacture a fact issue with a late affidavit: an affidavit that contradicts the affiant's own prior deposition testimony is disregarded on summary judgment (the 'sham affidavit'/Perma Research rule), unless the deposition was genuinely ambiguous or the affidavit is corroborated.
“It is well settled in this circuit that a party's affidavit which contradicts his own prior deposition testimony should be disregarded on a motion for summary judgment. ... Since the two conflict, the Affidavit must be disregarded.”
He treats arguments not addressed in an opposition brief as abandoned, and rejects retaliation theories built only on rebuffing a harasser -- merely declining a sexual advance is not, in his view, 'protected activity', so a harassment claim does not automatically carry a retaliation claim.
“The Court adopts the view that the rejection of sexual advances does not constitute a protected activity. If resisting the advances of a harasser constitutes a “protected activity,” then “every harassment claim would automatically state a retaliation claim as well.””
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: 3Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Motions to dismiss N = 3 |
Granted: 1Granted 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.
“Alexsam is judicially estopped from demanding royalties under the license agreement, and so MasterCard's motion for summary judgment is GRANTED.”
“The December R&R is adopted only with respect to Alexsam's motion to dismiss, which is DENIED.”
“defendants' motion to dismiss is GRANTED as to Reid's retaliation and aiding and abetting claims and DENIED as to her discrimination claims. Because Reid has already amended her complaint once, and because any further amendment would be futile, dismissal is with prejudice.”
“Defendant's motion for summary judgment is therefore granted.”
“Given the lack of subject matter jurisdiction in this case, the Defendants' unopposed motion to dismiss is granted.”
“Defendants' motion for summary judgment as to Plaintiffs' overtime claims under the FLSA and NYLL is GRANTED and Plaintiffs' cross-motion for summary judgment as to their overtime and wage statement claims is DENIED.”
“Defendants' motion for summary judgment as to Plaintiffs' overtime claims under the FLSA and NYLL is GRANTED and Plaintiffs' cross-motion for summary judgment as to their overtime and wage statement claims is DENIED.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median case duration in the sampled dockets: 169 days (N = 9).
A very senior judge (senior since 1993) on the Brooklyn bench, still assigned a steady civil docket plus occasional criminal cases. The terminated-docket sample mixes Section 1983 civil-rights suits against the City of New York, FDCPA/consumer-credit cases, insurance and RICO subrogation actions, and miscellaneous matters; FDCPA and insurance suits resolve in a few months, while contested civil-rights cases run longer. His historical caseload also includes the marquee organized-crime trials (Gotti, Gigante) for which he is best known.