Richard Mark Gergel
How Judge Gergel rules, drawn from 21 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
About Judge Gergel
Richard Mark Gergel is a judge of the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina. Appointed by President Barack Obama, Judge Gergel received a commission on August 9, 2010.
Judge Gergel's practices and standing orders
Rules for cases before Judge Gergel, as published on the court's website (checked October 9, 2026). Judges revise these often, so confirm the current version on the court's site before you file.
Standing orders for every case in this court
Orders the court applies to all of its cases, whichever judge has them, as published on the court's website (checked October 9, 2026).
How Judge Gergel decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In Sellers, Gergel retained the FLSA liability and willfulness findings but corrected the damages calculation on Rule 59(e) review: an impermissible bar-shortage deduction made wages unlawful, while the proper unpaid-wage amount was the deduction rather than forfeiture of the entire tip credit.
“The Court reconsiders its prior ruling and now holds that the unpaid wage is solely the amount of the impermissible deduction and does not affect the tip credit,”
In the fishing-lure injunction dispute, the court required evidence of likely irreparable harm before granting preliminary relief.
“Thus, the Court finds Plaintiffs have failed to meet their burden of demonstrating they are likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of a preliminary injunction.”
Procedural preferences
In a limitations dispute involving material beyond the pleadings, he treated the dismissal motion as one for summary judgment, granted it, and dismissed the claims against the two German defendants with prejudice.
“the Court construes the motion to dismiss as a motion for summary judgment and GRANTS the motion for summary judgment. ... The claims against Defendants Awuko Abrasives Wandmacher GmbH & Co KG and Wandmacher GmbH are dismissed with prejudice.”
In a removal dispute, he rejected a reading of the forum-defendant rule that would reward defendants for racing to remove a newly filed action before service.
“if the forum-defendant rule were read to allow pre-service removal, it would provide an incentive for defendants to employ gamesmanship by racing to remove newly filed actions”
Cautions
In Henry, Gergel granted an underinsured-motorist insurer summary judgment on a bad-faith claim. The insurer’s low settlement offer reflected a reasonable but costly misjudgment of likely trial damages, rather than evidence of bad faith in that record.
“the record shows that GEICO simply made a reasonable yet costly error in calculating the amount of damages a jury was likely to award Henry for his injuries.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment (Dkt. No. 40) is GRANTED.”
“Plaintiffs Motion to Certify Questions (Dkt. No. 41) is DENIED.”
“For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment (Dkt. No. 41) is GRANTED.”
“the Court declines, grants in part and denies in part Mr. Enzor's motion for summary judgment, and denies SCDPS's motion for summary judgment.”
“and denies SCDPS's motion for summary judgment.”
“the Court construes the motion to dismiss as a motion for summary judgment and GRANTS the motion for summary judgment. ... The claims against Defendants Awuko Abrasives Wandmacher GmbH & Co KG and Wandmacher GmbH are dismissed with prejudice.”
“For the reasons stated above, Plaintiff’s motion to remand (Dkt. No. 11) is GRANTED. The Court REMANDS the action to the Court of Common Pleas for Jasper County, South Carolina for adjudication on the merits.”
“The Court REMANDS the action to the Court of Common Pleas for Jasper County, South Carolina for adjudication on the merits. All other pending motions are denied as moot.”
“The Court denies TFD’s motion for leave to file a sur-reply for various reasons.”
“In light of the foregoing, the Court GRANTS Defendant Selective's motion to dismiss Plaintiffs' claims for declaratory relief. (Dkt. No. 7).”
“The Court ADOPTS the R & R (Dkt. No. 27) as the Order of the Court, DENIES Plaintiff's motion for preliminary injunction, and DISMISSES this action without further leave to amend.”
“Based on the above, Plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate they are entitled to injunctive relief at this time. Therefore, the motion is denied and the order of the Magistrate Judge adopted as the order of this Court and incorporated herein.”
“For the reasons articulated by the Magistrate Judge, it is hereby ORDERED that Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment is DENIED.”
“The decision of the Commissioner is reversed, pursuant to Sentence Four of 42 U.S.C. § 405(g), and remanded to the agency with the direction to award”
“the Court grants conditional class certification under 29 U.S.C. § 216(b) to all tipped employees earning less than $7.25 per hour who are or were employed at the Wild Dunes restaurants and bars from March 1, 2012, through entry of judgment of this matter.”
“For the following reasons, the Court grants the motion in part and denies it in part”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median case duration in the sampled dockets: 470 days (N = 8).
The sampled docket spans civil-rights and habeas cases, Social Security appeals, insurance and contract disputes, product-liability and medical-malpractice cases, employment claims, consumer-credit cases, and federal criminal matters. It also includes the national firefighting-foam multidistrict litigation and the Jose Padilla enemy-combatant damages case, Lebron v. Rumsfeld.
Pending matters in the official report
Reported by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts under the Civil Justice Reform Act, as of March 31, 2026.
| Motions pending more than six months | 2 |
| Bench trials submitted more than six months | 0 |
| Bankruptcy appeals pending more than six months | 0 |
| Social Security appeals pending more than six months | 0 |
| Civil cases pending more than three years | 2,268 |
| Report | Motions over six months | Cases over three years |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 2026 | 2 | 2,268 |
| Sep 2025 | 0 | 1,935 |
| Mar 2025 | 0 | 1,506 |
| Sep 2024 | 0 | 1,157 |
| Mar 2024 | 0 | 1,011 |
| Sep 2023 | 0 | 681 |
| Mar 2023 | 0 | 497 |
| Sep 2022 | 1 | 127 |
| Mar 2022 | 0 | 91 |
| Sep 2021 | 0 | 1 |
| Mar 2021 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2020 | 0 | 0 |
A snapshot on that date: matters listed may since have been decided or reassigned. A motion referred to a magistrate judge is counted for both judges. Motions in multidistrict litigation, section 2255 cases and Social Security appeals are not counted, and a very large three-year count is generally a multidistrict docket. Source: Appendix A of the report (PDF); about the report.
How long civil cases take in this court
For the whole of United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, not for Judge Gergel: median time from filing to disposition of the civil cases the court closed in the 12 months ending September 30, 2025, as reported by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
| Cases | Median time | |
|---|---|---|
| All civil cases closed | 2,805 | 7.8 months |
| Closed with no court action | 724 | 5.1 months |
| Closed before pretrial | 2,005 | 8.6 months |
| Closed during or after pretrial | 64 | 17.9 months |
| Closed during trial | 12 | 36 months |
| 12 months ending | Cases closed | Median time |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | 2,805 | 7.8 months |
| Sep 2024 | 5,800 | 12.2 months |
| Sep 2023 | 2,296 | 8.5 months |
| Sep 2022 | 2,364 | 9.8 months |
| Sep 2021 | 2,599 | 10 months |
| Sep 2020 | 2,190 | 10.1 months |
| Sep 2019 | 2,402 | 9.8 months |
The table leaves out prisoner petitions, land condemnations, deportation reviews, recovery of overpayments and enforcement of judgments, and reports no median for fewer than 10 cases. A district that closed a large multidistrict litigation in the period shows very large counts and long medians for that year. Source: Table C-5, U.S. District Courts (spreadsheet).
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