Lawrence Leroy Piersol
How Judge Piersol decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
Sitting in diversity he will not expand state tort law beyond what the South Dakota Supreme Court has actually held; arguments that the state court is 'poised' to follow a national trend (here, noneconomic damages in legal malpractice) are rejected as predictions a federal court should not make.
“The court has not adopted such a rule to date, and this Court will not presume the South Dakota Supreme Court will do so.”
Procedural preferences
He requires real, rule-compliant service: regular mail does not effect service, and a pro se plaintiff who is offered (and ignores) a Rule 4(d) waiver of service lacks 'good cause' for the failure -- so the case is dismissed rather than given a cure period, especially where jurisdiction is also absent.
“Plaintiff refused to take the path Rahn made available to him. Instead, Plaintiff relied on his wife's having used regular mail to send the complaint to Walters. ... this is insufficient under both the federal and pertinent state rules.”
Cautions
An unopposed summary-judgment motion is not automatically granted: even when the movant's facts are deemed admitted under LR 56.1.D, he independently confirms the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law before granting.
“That the Court adopts Ravnsborg's facts because Feickert did not dispute them does not necessarily allow the Court to summarily grant Ravnsborg's motion.”
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 = 3 |
Granted: 2Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Motions to dismiss N = 1 |
Granted: 1 | counts only |
| Default judgment N = 1 |
Denied: 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.
“That Ravnsborg's motion for summary judgment, Doc. 28, is granted.”
“Plaintiffs motion for default judgment against Defendant Walters (Doc. 19) is denied”
“Defendant Walters' motion to dismiss (Doc. 23) is granted.”
“Defendants' motion for partial summary judgment (Doc 30) is granted;”
“Plaintiffs motion for partial summary judgment (Doc. 37) is denied.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Caseload sample skews to recent (2024-2025) filings and reflects current intake, not career-long mix. Many remain pending.