Nina Radoff Morrison
How Judge Morrison rules, drawn from 37 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
About Judge Morrison
Nina Rauh Morrison is a judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Appointed by President Joseph R. Biden, Judge Morrison received a commission on August 11, 2022.
Judge Morrison's practices and standing orders
Rules for cases before Judge Morrison, as published on the court's website (checked October 8, 2026). Judges revise these often, so confirm the current version on the court's site before you file.
Key rules
Filing
Do not send paper courtesy copies unless the Court directs otherwise.
“Please do not submit courtesy copies (hard copies) of fil- ings to the Court unless otherwise directed.”
Conferences
Request an adjournment or filing extension at least two working days in advance absent an emergency.
“Absent an emergency, requests for adjournments of court appearances and extensions of filing deadlines shall be made at least two working days prior to the scheduled appearance or filing deadline.”
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 10, 2026).
How Judge Morrison decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In United States v. Robinson, she suppressed evidence from a warrantless cell phone border search and rejected good faith reliance on a later warrant after finding that the application omitted the actual reason the defendant had been selected for the search.
“the Special Agent who prepared the subsequent warrant application misled the magistrate judge about the actual circumstances that led to the airport search, intentionally omitting the one and only item of specific information known to CPB that led Robinson to be targeted for secondary screening and a device search in the first place.”
Procedural preferences
In Ostrowski v. Port Authority, she converted a dismissal motion to summary judgment after the defendant provided Rule 12.1 notice and both parties had an opportunity to submit outside materials.
“the procedural prerequisites for an application of 12(d) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have been met, and it will exercise its discretion to convert Defendant’s motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment.”
In Best v. Craivan, she abstained from interfering in a pending state criminal prosecution because the plaintiff had not established an exception to Younger v. Harris.
“As Plaintiff has failed to assert a valid exception to Younger v. Harris, this Court must abstain from interfering in his pending criminal prosecution.”
In a September 2026 detention case, the court kept interim protection in place while the habeas petition remained unresolved. The government acknowledged it had made no individual custody determination before detention, and the court found likely success and irreparable harm sufficient to convert a temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction.
“For the foregoing reasons, the TRO is converted into a preliminary injunction.”
Cautions
In Hewitt-Simmons v. Adams, she dismissed the claims under criminal statutes and for bribery while allowing the Title VII claim to proceed.
“the Court grants Defendants’ motion to dismiss Plaintiff’s First Amendment, §§ 241 and 242, and bribery claims, and denies Defendants’ motion to dismiss Plaintiff’s Title VII claim.”
In a Section 1983 excessive force action against New York City, she denied the City’s request for an indefinite stay on behalf of officers who had not yet appeared and might later become its adversaries.
“The Court has certainly found no case in which a court in a civil action has granted a motion filed by one party on behalf of a second party -- who has not yet appeared and who may end up being the first party's adversary -- for an indefinite stay.”
In Negative, Inc. v. McNamara, she dismissed the federal CFAA and DTSA claims with prejudice after the plaintiff did not request leave to amend; the state law claims were dismissed without prejudice.
“The Court dismisses the federal law claims with prejudice since at no time since the Court was presented with Plaintiff’s motion did Negative ask this Court to consider granting it leave to amend to cure any potential pleading defects alleged by Plaintiff as an alternative to dismissing the Complaint.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“For these reasons, Robinson's motion to suppress the evidence recovered from his iPhone is GRANTED.”
“For the reasons outlined herein, Defendant's motion, construed as a motion for summary judgment, is GRANTED, and this action is DISMISSED.”
“For the foregoing reasons, the Court grants Defendants' motion to dismiss Plaintiff's First Amendment, Sections 241 and 242, and bribery claims, and denies Defendants' motion to dismiss Plaintiff's Title VII claim.”
“Because Plaintiff's arguments raised in her sur-reply do not alter the Court's conclusions, the Court denies Defendants' motion to strike.”
“Williams has not shown any basis for relief under the demanding standards required by 28 U.S.C. Section 2254. Accordingly, the petition is denied. Additionally, a certificate of appealability will not issue, because Williams has not made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.”
“The Court grants Defendant Legal Aid Society's motion to dismiss.”
“for the reasons outlined above, the fact that Corporation Counsel has not yet determined whether it will represent the individual defendant police officers who may be facing a parallel CCRB investigation simply does not merit the 'extraordinary remedy' of an indefinite stay of Plaintiff's Section 1983 action. ... Defendant City of New York's motion is therefore denied.”
“For the foregoing reasons, the Court grants Defendants' motions to dismiss.”
“McNamara's motion to dismiss is GRANTED. Negative's CFAA and DTSA claims are dismissed with prejudice, while its state law claims are dismissed without prejudice.”
“the court grants Plaintiff's motion for judgment on the pleadings and denies the Commissioner's cross-motion. The Commissioner's decision is remanded for further consideration consistent with this opinion.”
“the court grants Plaintiff's motion for judgment on the pleadings and denies the Commissioner's cross-motion.”
“the Court grants Defendant's motion to dismiss with regard to all of Plaintiff's federal claims. The Court declines to exercise supplemental jurisdiction on Plaintiff's state law claims.”
“Accordingly, Plaintiff's April 25, 2024 Motion pursuant to Rule 60(b) is denied.”
“Accordingly, this petition for a writ of habeas corpus is dismissed without prejudice. As Petitioner has not made a substantial showing of a denial of a constitutional right, a certificate of appealability will not issue.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median motion-to-ruling time: 285 days (N = 3).
- As an active judge who took the bench in 2022, Judge Morrison has a young, fast-growing, and mostly pending docket.
- The most recent slice (spring 2026) is dominated by a surge of alien-detainee habeas petitions under 28 U.S.C. 2241 (e.g. P.P. v. Mullin, Diallo v. Lyons, Duong v. Maldonado, Cabanas Reyes v. Soto, Kuprashvili v. MDC Brooklyn, Alvarado Rodriguez v. Maldonado), alongside criminal prosecutions (United States v. Gumbs, United States v. Figueroa), FLSA, labor, and FMLA wage matters (Cherubin, Dolores Saravia Fuentes v. ICON), consumer credit-reporting cases (Ortiz v. TransUnion, Khan v. Alcon), Social Security appeals (Lopez), immigration mandamus suits (Qu v. USCIS, Urunov v. Edlow), and assorted contract and foreclosure matters.
- Case durations are not yet computable: too few cases have terminated, and this sample surfaced only pending recent filings.
- This is a caseload sketch from case-level records, not a measure of outcomes.
Pending matters in the official report
Reported by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts under the Civil Justice Reform Act, as of March 31, 2026.
| 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 | 6 |
| Civil cases pending more than three years | 38 |
| Report | Motions over six months | Cases over three years |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 2026 | 0 | 38 |
| Sep 2025 | 5 | 43 |
| Mar 2025 | 3 | 45 |
| Sep 2024 | 18 | 39 |
| Mar 2024 | 21 | 37 |
| Sep 2023 | 3 | 45 |
| Mar 2023 | 5 | 44 |
| Sep 2022 | 0 | 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 Eastern District of New York, not for Judge Morrison: 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 | 7,392 | 6.7 months |
| Closed with no court action | 1,485 | 3 months |
| Closed before pretrial | 5,022 | 6.9 months |
| Closed during or after pretrial | 835 | 13.9 months |
| Closed during trial | 50 | 49.6 months |
| 12 months ending | Cases closed | Median time |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | 7,392 | 6.7 months |
| Sep 2024 | 7,879 | 5.8 months |
| Sep 2023 | 7,746 | 5.1 months |
| Sep 2022 | 7,588 | 6.2 months |
| Sep 2021 | 6,709 | 7.9 months |
| Sep 2020 | 6,062 | 8.6 months |
| Sep 2019 | 6,858 | 8.1 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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