Richard Joseph Sullivan
How Judge Sullivan rules, drawn from 23 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
Judge Sullivan no longer hears cases. This profile is preserved as a historical record of how they ruled.
How Judge Sullivan decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
Sullivan required a party claiming privilege to establish its elements with competent evidence rather than conclusory assertions, and compelled production when the documents concerned fee and collection procedures.
“neither the Defendants nor EEC establishes that any privilege applies to the collection agreement or firm manual”
He denied suppression after evaluating the officers' testimony and video evidence under the totality of circumstances and finding reasonable suspicion for the stop and frisk.
“the Court concludes that the stop and frisk of Torres was supported by the requisite reasonable suspicion”
Procedural preferences
Sullivan enforced pretrial disclosure boundaries by excluding trademark evidence first identified after discovery and the joint pretrial order.
“These submissions were inadequate to put eBay on notice of the New Marks.”
He allowed intervention when a bankruptcy ruling unexpectedly left noteholders without representation and their application caused no demonstrated prejudice to the multidistrict litigation.
“the motion to intervene mine pro tunc to the filing date of WTC’s action is GRANTED.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“For these reasons, the Court hereby DENIES the defendant’s motion in limine.”
“P & G’s request to compel Ultreo to disclose the protocols, data, and final results of the studies is hereby GRANTED.”
“plaintiffs’ motion for certification of an immediate appeal is DENIED.”
“the Court declines to abstain from exercising jurisdiction over this case and denies Defendants’ motion to dismiss.”
“For the reasons stated above, Defendant’s motion to dismiss is granted.”
“For the reasons stated above, Fulcrum’s motion for summary judgment is DENIED.”
“Village Fuel’s motion for attorneys’ fees is denied.”
“For the reasons that follow, the Court grants Travelers’ motion to dismiss.”
“Defendant’s motion to dismiss the FAC is granted in part and denied in part.”
“the motion to intervene mine pro tunc to the filing date of WTC’s action is GRANTED.”
“Because neither Defendants nor EEC has established that the documents Plaintiff seeks are privileged, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED THAT EEC shall produce those documents to Plaintiff by July 29, 2013.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
The five sampled terminated matters included fraud, intellectual-property, civil-rights, contract, and criminal proceedings. Their filing-to-termination intervals were 285, 325, 410, 729, and 771 days, with a median of 410 days. This small opening-tenure sample does not represent the full caseload.
A historical record
Judge Sullivan no longer hears cases. This profile stays available as a record of how they ruled. If you're preparing for a matter, start from the court's current bench.