Arun Subramanian
How Judge Subramanian decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
Enforces forum-selection clauses in online terms of service: where a plaintiff's claims arise out of an agreement that designates a forum, he transfers to the chosen forum absent extraordinary circumstances, rather than reaching the merits.
“the motion to transfer is GRANTED.”
In PSLRA securities class actions he applies the statutory presumption mechanically: the lead-plaintiff contest turns on who has the largest financial interest and otherwise satisfies Rule 23, and an unrebutted presumption decides it. Movants should lead with their financial stake, not narrative.
“Schryver's motion to be appointed as lead plaintiff and to appoint Levi & Korinsky as lead counsel is GRANTED.”
Procedural preferences
Holds parties firmly to discovery deadlines and does not reward inattention. He denied a discovery-extension request and ordered production within 24 hours, pointedly noting a prior judge had already warned there would be no extensions and that the issue 'apparently was never attended to' despite an earlier on-consent 'one final extension.'
“The request for an extension is denied, and the documents from DOCCS should be produced within 24 hours. In June, Judge McMahon informed the parties that there would be no extensions of the September discovery deadline. ... At that time, the issue of paper discovery from the State Defendants was raised, but apparently was never attended to.”
Does not, as a regular practice, retain jurisdiction to enforce private settlements, and warns parties that if he does, the settlement agreement must be filed publicly -- a nudge toward clean Rule 41 dismissals without ongoing court entanglement.
“It is not this Court's regular practice to retain jurisdiction to enforce settlement agreements. If the parties think it is necessary for the Court to do so here, they should file a joint letter ... The parties should be aware that if this Court does retain jurisdiction, the settlement agreement will need to be filed publicly.”
Cautions
On a counseled summary-judgment motion he is willing to deny from the bench and move the case to trial: after oral argument he denied the state defendants' qualified-immunity MSJ in a Section 1983 parole/false-imprisonment case and set the joint pretrial order and trial schedule the same day. A defendant betting on summary judgment before Subramanian should be trial-ready.
“For the reasons discussed at today's hearing, the state defendants' motion for summary judgment is DENIED.”
He decides summary judgment on the narrowest sufficient ground and is candid about it. In the defamation case he granted the defense first on ordinary state-law defamation principles, then added that a trial would have intruded on church autonomy -- resolving the case without resting solely on the constitutional question the parties had briefed most heavily. Movants should give him a clean, non-constitutional path to the result they want.
“putting aside the constitutional issues that dominate the parties' briefing, Belya's claims fail on routine state-law grounds.”
He holds the moving party to its evidentiary burden and is skeptical of attacks that lack proof of intent. He twice denied summary judgment in a copyright case, refusing to invalidate registrations absent evidence that any inaccuracy was made knowingly, and declined to refer the question to the Copyright Office, noting that referral procedure is 'vulnerable to abuse.' A challenger needs concrete evidence, not theory.
“Best Brands has scant evidence that any legal errors in the copyright registrations (if they exist in the first place) were made knowingly.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“Shih's motion to serve as lead plaintiff is DENIED.”
“Schryver's motion to be appointed as lead plaintiff and to appoint Levi & Korinsky as lead counsel is GRANTED.”
“The motion to intervene and transfer is DENIED without prejudice.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median motion-to-ruling time: 9 days (N = 13).
Judge Subramanian was commissioned in April 2023, so his docket is young; a large share of the cases that reached him are reassignments inherited from other judges part-way through (Beverly Hills from Judge Woods, Belya from Judge Marrero, Rodriguez from Judge McMahon, Solid 21 and Wenger from Judge Schofield) or related-case referrals. The current docket is 2026-heavy and dominated by a wave of alien-detainee habeas petitions, alongside copyright, defamation, trademark, insurance, ADA Title III, FLSA labor, contract, securities, and a federal criminal docket. Where the inherited cases were fully briefed, he has reached the merits: he granted summary judgment ending the Belya defamation case and twice denied summary judgment in the Beverly Hills copyright case before it settled. Many other inherited matters resolved by settlement, stipulated dismissal, or voluntary dismissal. This reflects current assignments plus a sample of terminated dockets, not a tenure-wide caseload.
Put Judge Subramanian's record to work
Ezel drafts and answers grounded in this exact profile: how Judge Subramanian actually rules, not a generic AI guess.
Opens in Ezel Pro. Every answer is grounded in Judge Subramanian's own signed orders and cites them.