Loretta A. Preska
How Judge Preska decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
She holds the non-movant on summary judgment to the strict letter of Local Civil Rule 56.1: a party who merely 'disagrees' with the movant's statement of material facts, or objects without citing admissible record evidence, has its opponent's facts deemed admitted. A litigant opposing summary judgment in her court must controvert each 56.1 paragraph with a specific record citation, not a general denial or a blanket evidentiary objection.
“The facts set forth in the statement 'will be deemed to be admitted for purposes of the motion unless specifically controverted ... in the statement required to be served by the opposing party.' Local Civil Rule 56.1(c). Each statement by either party ... must be followed by citation to evidence which would be admissible.”
Procedural preferences
At the pleading stage in an SEC enforcement action she will let a detailed, particularized accounting-fraud complaint proceed past Rule 12(b)(6) / 9(b) against multiple officer-defendants, taking the alleged facts as true. A defendant in a well-pleaded fraud case should not expect to win dismissal on the pleadings and should litigate the merits on a developed record.
“Currently pending before the Court are motions [dkt. nos. 17, 20, 24, 33, 35] to dismiss the Complaint filed by Dunn, Beatty, Pahapill, Gollogly and Hamilton. ... For the reasons set forth below, those motions are DENIED.”
Cautions
She decides claim-by-claim and defendant-by-defendant rather than disposing of a multi-party motion wholesale: in one order she granted one defendant's motion to dismiss outright, granted another's only in part, and granted-in-part the plaintiff's cross-motion to strike. Counsel should brief each defendant's and each claim's sufficiency separately, because she will parse them and a mixed result is likely.
“Defendant CNA's motion to dismiss is granted, Defendant Continental's motion to dismiss is granted in part and denied in part, and Plaintiff PB's cross-motion to strike is granted in part and denied in part.”
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.
| Summary judgment N = 5 |
Granted: 2Granted in part: 3 | counts only |
| Motions to dismiss N = 3 |
Granted: 1Granted in part: 1Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Motions to strike N = 1 |
Granted in part: 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.
“Currently pending before the Court are motions [dkt. nos. 17, 20, 24, 33, 35] to dismiss the Complaint filed by Dunn, Beatty, Pahapill, Gollogly and Hamilton. ... For the reasons set forth below, those motions are DENIED.”
“For the reasons set forth below, Defendant CNA's motion to dismiss is granted, Defendant Continental's motion to dismiss is granted in part and denied in part, and Plaintiff PB's cross-motion to strike is granted in part and denied in part.”
“Defendant Continental's motion to dismiss is granted in part and denied in part”
“Plaintiff PB's cross-motion to strike is granted in part and denied in part.”
“For the reasons set forth below, LPHI's motion for partial summary judgment [dkt. no. 35] is granted in part and denied in part, and Maxim's cross-motion for summary judgment [dkt. no. 40] is granted in part and denied in part.”
“Maxim's cross-motion for summary judgment [dkt. no. 40] is granted in part and denied in part.”
“Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment for Failure to Conciliate [dkt. no. 103] is DENIED in part and GRANTED in part.”
“Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment as to Time-Barred Claims [dkt. no. 99] is GRANTED.”
“For the reasons set forth below, Defendant's motion for summary judgment is granted, and Plaintiff's complaint is dismissed in its entirety.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Sample from search_dockets(assigned_judge='Loretta A. Preska'). The visible docket is current and 2026-heavy and strikingly copyright/IP-weighted: multiple 820 Copyright suits (including CNN v. Perplexity AI, an AI-training copyright matter), 840 Trademark, plus civil-rights jobs, commercial contract, marine contract, and a criminal docket. Reflects current assignments, not a tenure-wide caseload. (Preska took senior status in 2017, so her historical caseload is far larger than this current-assignment page suggests.)