Nusrat Jahan Choudhury
How Judge Choudhury decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
An unopposed motion is not an automatic win. Even where the plaintiff filed no opposition AND the movant's briefing was inadequate, she independently researched and analyzed the controlling law to test the sufficiency of the pleadings before granting dismissal. Brief the substance fully; do not rely on a default or on the other side's silence.
“Despite ICG's inadequate briefing and given my obligation to test the sufficiency of the pleadings' allegations in light of FHB's failure to oppose the Motion, I have located and analyzed the relevant law to reach my conclusions in this Order.”
Procedural preferences
She enforces diversity-jurisdiction pleading rigorously and sua sponte. A defendant removing on diversity must affirmatively establish each party's citizenship/domicile (not just residence) -- she will remand for failure to do so, and conclusory, non-fact-specific allegations will not earn jurisdictional discovery; she expects parties to search public databases (e.g. Accurint) for domicile evidence.
“the PHH Defendants have not offered any "fact-specific jurisdictional allegations" other than Plaintiff's residence and presence in Georgia at the time the Verified Complaint was signed. ... Accordingly, the PHH Defendants have failed to demonstrate that jurisdictional discovery is warranted here.”
Strong default in favor of public access. On a motion to proceed anonymously she applies the Second Circuit's ten Sealed Plaintiff factors against the Rule 10(a) requirement that a complaint name all parties -- which 'serves the vital purpose of facilitating public scrutiny' and 'cannot be set aside lightly' -- and points litigants to redaction of sensitive medical/health details as the adequate, narrower alternative to pseudonymity.
“the balance of the ten Sealed Plaintiff factors weighs in favor of denying the motion, especially in light of the alternative mechanisms existing for protecting sensitive medical and health information, such as redacting all filings that detail A.V.'s medical conditions, diagnoses, and treatment.”
Cautions
On fee applications she does not award the full ask: she adopted the magistrate's reduced rates and hours, cutting a prevailing wage-and-hour plaintiff's requested fees from $93,764.67 to $48,170.77. Submit reasonable, well-supported rates and hours -- expect a lodestar haircut on inflated requests.
“Teoh's Motion for Attorney's Fees (ECF No. 95) is granted in part, with reduced rates and hours as set forth in the R&R.”
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 = 2 |
Granted: 1Granted in part: 1 | counts only |
| Default judgment N = 1 |
Granted: 1 | counts only |
| Motion for attorney fees N = 1 |
Granted in part: 1 | counts only |
| Motion for reconsideration N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Motion to proceed anonymously 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.
Her own signed MEMORANDUM AND ORDER dismissing a pro se action for failure to prosecute under Rule 41(b) after the plaintiff failed to pay the filing fee (IFP having been denied) and abandoned the case. Non-motion disposition; recorded as an order read, excluded from motion stats. Grounding quote: 'the Complaint is dismissed without prejudice pursuant to Rule 41(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.' Applies the five Baptiste v. Sommers factors.
“Having reviewed the Motion for Default Judgment, the R&R, and the applicable law, I find no clear error and adopt the thorough and well-reasoned R&R in its entirety. Accordingly, I grant Empire's Motion for Default Judgment.”
“For the reasons set forth above, ICG's Partial Motion to Dismiss the Complaint (ECF No. 18) is granted and Claims IV and V against ICG are dismissed with prejudice.”
“Teoh's Motion for Attorney's Fees (ECF No. 95) is granted in part, with reduced rates and hours as set forth in the R&R. The Court awards Teoh $56,553.02 as follows: $48,170.77 in attorney's fees and $8,382.25 in costs.”
“the PHH Defendants' Motion for Reconsideration (ECF No. 35) is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, or in the alternative, denied because the PHH Defendants have not identified any intervening change in controlling law, new evidence, or the need to correct clear error or prevent a manifest injustice that would warrant reconsideration under Local Rule 6.3.”
“Nonetheless, the balance of the ten Sealed Plaintiff factors weighs in favor of denying the motion, especially in light of the alternative mechanisms existing for protecting sensitive medical and health information, such as redacting all filings that detail A.V.'s medical conditions, diagnoses, and treatment. ... Judge Dunst's denial of A.V.'s motion to proceed anonymously is not clearly erroneous or contrary to law. ... The Oral Order is hereby affirmed.”
“Defendants' motion to dismiss this action under Rule 12(b)(1) and the Burford abstention doctrine is denied. ... Defendants' motion to dismiss Plaintiffs' federal due process claim based on the alleged excessive nature of the Trustees' dimensional fee requirement and claims under New York common law under Rule 12(b)(6) is granted.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
All cases in the as-assigned sample were filed 2026 and remain pending. The mix (alien-detainee habeas surge, FLSA labor, contract, pro se prisoner, social-services) is a typical Long Island civil intake. Flagged for deepening: to get groundable docket_motions a future unit should pull her specific OLDER terminated -NJC dockets by docket_id (e.g. Teoh 22-cv-04110, Empire 23-cv-05896, the Arch/First Horizon contract cases) and page get_docket_entries to the motion/ruling entries for real latency.