Steven M. Gold
How Judge Gold decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
He grounds discovery rulings in the actual prior record, not the parties' competing recollections. After many discovery disputes in one case he expressly declined to re-weigh the merits and instead pulled the conference transcript to confirm what he had previously ordered. If you tell him 'the Court already ruled X,' be ready to produce the transcript -- he will read it.
“the large number of previous discovery applications and conferences convinces me not to do so, but instead to base my rulings upon prior court orders and the representations of counsel made at prior conferences.”
Procedural preferences
He prefers fixing curable pleading problems by amendment over dismissing on the papers. Where a Rule 12 motion turns on untested factual assertions or deficiencies the plaintiff can likely correct, he recommends denial WITHOUT PREJUDICE plus leave to amend and limited targeted discovery -- rather than a merits dismissal. A defendant should expect a second round, not a quick win, on a premature 12(b)(6).
“I respectfully recommend that defendants' motion be denied without prejudice to renewal after plaintiffs file their second amended complaint. ... it appears that defendants' motion is based primarily upon factual assertions that have not been tested in discovery and pleading deficiencies that plaintiffs are likely to be able to correct if granted leave to amend.”
Cautions
A default is not a blank check for damages before Gold. He grants the default but awards only what is documented and legally supportable -- carving out claims where the plaintiff lacks proof (e.g. missing assignments of claims) and cutting damages/fees to documented amounts. Bring complete, documented damages proof to a default-judgment motion.
“Because Tutis did not obtain assignments of claims from its clients "JA" or "Yap," Plaintiffs' motion for default judgment is denied with respect to the claims in 15-cv-836, and the claims based on the transaction involving "JA" in 15-cv-835.”
Sanctions are not awarded as a matter of course on a discovery win. He denied a sanctions application where the moving party did not prevail on one motion and the opposition to the other was substantially justified -- partial success and a good-faith dispute defeat a fee-shifting/sanctions request.
“Because plaintiff did not prevail on the first motion, and because defendants opposed only one aspect of the relief sought by plaintiff in connection with the second motion, plaintiff's application for sanctions is denied.”
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.
| Default judgment N = 3 |
Granted: 2Granted in part: 1 | counts only |
| Summary judgment N = 2 |
Granted: 2 | counts only |
| Motions to dismiss N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Motion to modify subpoena N = 1 |
Granted: 1 | counts only |
| Motion for sanctions 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.
“defendants' motion to modify the subpoena to eliminate the sixth category of documents listed therein is granted.”
“Because plaintiff did not prevail on the first motion, and because defendants opposed only one aspect of the relief sought by plaintiff in connection with the second motion, plaintiff's application for sanctions is denied.”
“I respectfully recommend that defendants' motion be denied without prejudice to renewal after plaintiffs file their second amended complaint. In short, it appears that defendants' motion is based primarily upon factual assertions that have not been tested in discovery and pleading deficiencies that plaintiffs are likely to be able to correct if granted leave to amend.”
“Having reviewed de novo those parts of the R&R to which Minima has objected, the Court now adopts the R&R as the Decision and Order of this Court. Accordingly, the defendants' motion for summary judgment is granted.”
“On September 24, 2013, this Court adopted Magistrate Judge Steven Gold's Report and Recommendation (R&R) recommending default judgments be entered against eighteen defaulting defendants.”
“this Court grants plaintiffs' motions for summary judgment against Smimov, Bluvstein and Hsu. The Clerk of Court is directed close this case and to enter judgment against Bluvstein, Smimov, and Hsu, jointly and severally, in the amounts indicated below for treble damages under RICO”
“the Court grants Plaintiffs' motion for default judgment and judgment is entered against the Villeroy, Dickey, and Turner Defendants jointly and severally, in the amount of $2,074,990. Because Tutis did not obtain assignments of claims from its clients "JA" or "Yap," Plaintiffs' motion for default judgment is denied with respect to the claims in 15-cv-836, and the claims based on the transaction involving "JA" in 15-cv-835.”
“the Court grants Plaintiff's motion for default judgment against Defendant, and awards Plaintiff $1,000 in statutory damages under the Copyright Act, $5,000 in statutory damages under the DMCA, $595 in attorney's fees, and $400 in costs.”
ORDER OF DISMISSAL by Senior District Judge Sterling Johnson, Jr. adopting Gold's R&R (dated 2016-07-15) after Gold ordered the plaintiff to show cause why the action should not be dismissed for failure to prosecute (no service). Non-motion disposition (court's own OSC -> Rule 4(m)/41(b) dismissal); recorded as an order read, excluded from motion stats.
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
The as-assigned docket sample is dominated by magistrate criminal-duty matters and electronic-evidence applications (multiple cell-phone search-warrant applications and a pen-register/trap-and-trace order). This grounds his criminal-duty/surveillance docket but yields no civil motion-outcome or latency data. To get groundable docket_motions a future unit must pull specific OLDER terminated civil -SMG dockets by docket_id (located via the referring district judge) and page get_docket_entries to the R&R/order entries.