Cynthia Richardson Wyrick
How Judge Wyrick rules, drawn from 27 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
About Judge Wyrick
Cynthia Richardson Wyrick has served as a United States Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of Tennessee since September 2019. Before joining the bench, she practiced law in Sevierville and served as city attorney for Pigeon Forge.
Judge Wyrick's practices and standing orders
Rules for cases before Judge Wyrick, 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.
Key rules
Contacting chambers
Limit correspondence to routine matters or discovery disputes, and copy all other counsel.
“Should be avoided, except for routine (scheduling, advising of settlement status, etc.) matters, should not address the merits of any motion or case except discovery disputes, and in any event all other attorneys should be furnished a copy.”
Discovery
Counsel should contact the Court’s law clerk to request a discovery conference before filing a discovery-related motion.
“Counsel should contact the Court’s law clerk to request a discovery conference before filing a discovery-related motion.”
Sealing
The parties are required to meet and confer prior to filing a motion to seal documents.
“The parties are required to meet and confer prior to filing a motion to seal documents.”
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 Wyrick decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
On a defendant's motion for partial summary judgment tied to a disputed genetic condition, she found conflicting expert opinions on causation, where the defense experts thought the condition probably did not cause the injury but could not say so with certainty, and a plaintiff's expert could not rule it out, insufficient to resolve causation as a matter of law, leaving it for the jury.
“Defendant would need to show more than a mere possibility that OLG's genetic mutation impacted her injuries.”
In evaluating whether earlier controlled drug buys could justify a later warrantless stop, she treated staleness as decisive: prior transactions from weeks or months earlier did not carry forward to justify an unrelated same-day stop absent some link connecting the defendant to that day's specific conduct.
“While law enforcement had successfully used a confidential informant to purchase drugs directly from Defendant Williamson in November 2019 and from her through Co-Defendant Owens earlier in January 2020, those buys were too stale to provide exigent circumstances to support the stop in question.”
Procedural preferences
On a narrow Daubert challenge to one sentence of an otherwise-admissible expert report, she excluded only the specific unsupported opinion rather than the expert's testimony as a whole, faulting the expert for not showing how his stated methodology led to that particular conclusion.
“Reiling does not explain how he used his expertise to form that conclusion, i.e., the Court cannot determine what, if any, principle or method he used in reaching this conclusion.”
In Hale v. Commissioner of Social Security, Wyrick affirmed the denial of disability benefits after finding substantial evidence in the record; she found that the ALJ’s analysis reflected consideration of medical-opinion supportability and consistency even though he had not stated it as specifically as she would have preferred.
“The Court will continue to affirm the ALJ's ruling if it is based on substantial evidence, even if the Court might have reached a different conclusion after reviewing the evidence.”
In Elsea, she denied a defendant’s motion to compel audio recordings after the government represented that the recordings did not exist.
“cannot be compelled to provide items that do not exist”
Cautions
Even after finding a genuine due-process violation at a bench trial, she awarded only nominal damages because the plaintiff did not put on specific proof of how the deprivation itself (as opposed to the underlying discipline) harmed him: a reminder that liability findings do not translate into substantial damages without specific proof of harm.
“Plaintiff has failed to prove with sufficient specificity how he was impacted by Defendant's failure to provide him with due process.”
In United States v. Hall, Wyrick analyzed the Barker speedy-trial factors and recommended denying a motion to dismiss the indictment after finding no Sixth Amendment or Speedy Trial Act violation; her prejudice analysis took account of the pandemic’s suspension of jury trials.
“Especially in light of the inability for the Court to provide jury trials during the relevant time period because of a global pandemic, the Court cannot find that the prejudice suffered by Defendant rises to the level of 'substantial prejudice' required.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
Following a full consent-jurisdiction bench trial over four days, the judge found that a high-school student was suspended for a year without the due process the school board's own policies required, but that he failed to prove more than nominal harm from the deprivation itself, so awarded $1 in nominal damages, ordered the disciplinary record corrected, and left the door open to an attorney-fee award given the plaintiff's success on the due-process claim.
The assigned district judge, rather than Wyrick, dismissed this referred consumer-credit case for failure to prosecute.
“For these reasons, it is RECOMMENDED that Defendant's Motion to Dismiss the Indictment [Doc. 293] be DENIED.”
“Investigator Legault stopped Defendants Hicks and Williamson without a warrant and without reasonable suspicion; thus, the seizure fails to comport with the Fourth Amendment and the evidence recovered as a result must be suppressed. For these reasons, the undersigned RECOMMENDS that Defendants Williamson's and Hick's Motions to Suppress [Docs. 36 and 42-43] be GRANTED.”
“Accordingly, the Court RECOMMENDS that United States' Motion for Review of Release Order [Doc. 32] be GRANTED, and that Defendant be detained pending trial.”
The assigned district judge, rather than Wyrick, issued the order allowing the criminal defendant to represent himself.
The district judge affirmed Wyrick's discovery ruling denying a motion to compel recordings that the government represented did not exist.
The assigned district judge, rather than Wyrick, issued the dismissal ruling in this medical-device product-liability case.
The assigned district judge, rather than Wyrick, resolved the cross-motions in this employee-benefit case.
The district judge entered default judgment and separately adopted Wyrick's unopposed recommendation concerning discovery sanctions.
“Based upon the foregoing, the Court finds that Defendants may not offer at trial the opinion of expert witness K. Scott Reiling, P.E., ACTAR that '[a]lcohol may have been a contributing factor in the accident' in question. As such, Plaintiff's Motion [Doc. 75] is GRANTED.”
“Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment [Doc. 84] is DENIED, and Defendants' Motion for Partial Summary Judgment [Doc. 88] is likewise DENIED.”
“Defendant's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment as to the issue of OLG's pathogenic genetic variant is DENIED.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Her consent-jurisdiction civil docket is dominated by Social Security disability appeals, with a substantial secondary vein of personal-injury and premises-liability suits (several against the same regional retailer) and products-liability cases, plus civil-rights, ERISA, insurance-coverage, and general contract disputes.
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 | 0 |
| 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 | 0 |
| Report | Motions over six months | Cases over three years |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 2026 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2024 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar 2024 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2023 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar 2023 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2022 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar 2022 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2021 | 0 | 0 |
| 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 U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, not for Judge Wyrick: 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 | 933 | 9.3 months |
| Closed with no court action | 139 | 7.3 months |
| Closed before pretrial | 724 | 9.1 months |
| Closed during or after pretrial | 59 | 20.2 months |
| Closed during trial | 11 | 32.4 months |
| 12 months ending | Cases closed | Median time |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | 933 | 9.3 months |
| Sep 2024 | 845 | 10.4 months |
| Sep 2023 | 762 | 10.9 months |
| Sep 2022 | 921 | 12.5 months |
| Sep 2021 | 949 | 11.6 months |
| Sep 2020 | 803 | 10 months |
| Sep 2019 | 859 | 12.1 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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