Timothy M. Cain

United States District Court for the District of South Carolina district Appointed by Barack Obama (Democratic) 3 signed orders read

How Judge Cain decides

Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.

What persuades

Cain will not dismiss state-law overdraft/deposit claims on National Bank Act preemption grounds at the Rule 12(b)(6) stage, finding the In re Checking Account Overdraft MDL reasoning persuasive that such claims only incidentally affect a bank's deposit-taking power.

“only Plaintiffs' claim of unconscionability is dismissed. Accordingly, Defendant TD Bank's Motion to Dismiss (ECF No. 25) is DENIED in part and GRANTED in part.”

Procedural preferences

On a public-employee First Amendment retaliation claim he applies the Elrod/Branti and Pickering/Connick confluence and weights the policymaking or confidential character of the job heavily, holding that a deputy clerk in a confidential public-contact role has no First Amendment right to keep her job after challenging the elected clerk.

“Gault's motion for reconsideration (ECF No. 39) and motion for summary judgment or, in the alternative, to dismiss (ECF No. 26) are GRANTED.”

Signed rulings

A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.

King v. Carolina First Bank
· 2014-06-06
Motions to dismiss (defendant) Granted in part

“only Plaintiffs' claim of unconscionability is dismissed. Accordingly, Defendant TD Bank's Motion to Dismiss (ECF No. 25) is DENIED in part and GRANTED in part.”

Lawson v. Gault
· 2014-11-17
Summary judgment (defendant) Granted

“Gault's motion for reconsideration (ECF No. 39) and motion for summary judgment or, in the alternative, to dismiss (ECF No. 26) are GRANTED.”

Motion for reconsideration (defendant) Granted

“The court grants the motion to reconsider, and issues this order, which supersedes the court's order dated August 14, 2014.”

Glanton v. DirecTV, LLC
· 2016-03-23
Motions to dismiss (defendant) Granted

“It is therefore ORDERED that Defendant's motion to dismiss (ECF No. 17) is GRANTED.”

Caseload & timing

From public federal docket records for this judge.

Median case duration in the sampled dockets: 288 days (N = 8).

The sampled docket spans consumer-credit suits, employee-benefit disputes, Social Security appeals, employment discrimination, prisoner civil-rights and habeas cases, trademark and contract matters, and a long-running False Claims Act case. The eight-case duration cohort is illustrative rather than a complete measure of the Chief Judge's caseload.

Put Judge Cain's record to work

Ezel drafts and answers grounded in this exact profile: how Judge Cain actually rules, not a generic AI guess.

Opens in Ezel Pro. Every answer is grounded in Judge Cain's own signed orders and cites them.