Kiyo A. Matsumoto
How Judge Matsumoto decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
On emergency relief she defers heavily to government public-health and operational judgments: in the COVID-vaccine-mandate context she found a 'compelling justification' for the mandate and held that balancing competing public-health and business interests is 'up to local government, not the courts,' so a preliminary injunction against such a mandate faces a steep likelihood-of-success hurdle.
“Ultimately, it is up to local government, not the courts, to balance the competing public health and business interests[,] and here, the New York City government and NYC DOE have done so in issuing and enforcing the COVID-19 Vaccination Mandate for employees of the Department of Education.”
Procedural preferences
She enforces the Lugosch presumption of public access to documents filed in connection with dispositive motions: a party seeking to seal summary-judgment materials must overcome that presumption with specific, on-the-record findings that higher values require a narrowly tailored sealing; a generalized prior protective order or a desire for confidentiality is not enough. Expect denial of broad sealing, with only narrow privacy redactions permitted.
“the court cannot make specific, on-the-record findings that any higher values necessitate a narrowly tailored sealing. Accordingly, the parties should confer and determine whether any particular information should be redacted for privacy purposes.”
Cautions
Litigant misconduct has hard consequences in her courtroom. She will adopt a recommendation to dismiss WITH PREJUDICE as a sanction where a (even pro se) litigant engages in threatening, harassing, or abusive conduct toward opposing counsel or the court after explicit warnings -- and will warn that continued misconduct may produce a filing bar across cases.
“the court ADOPTS the R&R, GRANTS Defendants' [101] motion for sanctions, and DISMISSES this action with prejudice. Plaintiff is HEREBY WARNED that similar misconduct in any other case before this court may result in additional sanctions, including ... an order barring Plaintiff from filing further actions without court approval.”
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.
| Preliminary injunction N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Motion for sanctions N = 1 |
Granted: 1 | counts only |
| Motion to vacate 2255 N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Motion to seal N = 1 |
Denied: 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.
“Accordingly, Plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order is DENIED.”
“For the foregoing reasons, the court ADOPTS the R&R, GRANTS Defendants' [101] motion for sanctions, and DISMISSES this action with prejudice.”
“For the foregoing reasons, petitioner's application to vacate his sentence is denied and dismissed with prejudice, and the application to remove petitioner from “refuse-to-pay” status is denied and dismissed.”
“After reviewing the memorandum and CCRB report, the court can discern no reason to seal the documents, particularly because the CCRB's investigation appears to have concluded.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median case duration in the sampled dockets: 473 days (N = 2).
Senior E.D.N.Y. district judge (active seat 2008-2022) sitting in Brooklyn (docket suffix 'KAM'). The sampled 2018-2019 window is a mix of criminal matters (several sealed/John Doe indictments; United States v. Morales-Morales), prisoner habeas (Joseph v. Pressly), Section 1983 / prisoner civil rights, Administrative Procedure Act review (American Steamship Owners Mutual P&I Ass'n v. United States), and miscellaneous dockets (Smalls, Spencer). The reasoning-layer orders add COVID-vaccine-mandate employment, pro se prisoner civil rights, 2255 habeas, and a CCRB Section 1983 matter. Mix is qualitative this build (case-level metadata only).