Eli Jeremy Richardson
How Judge Richardson decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
Equal-protection / due-process: a law that turns on a minor's sex and that bars parents from directing their child's medical care draws heightened (intermediate) scrutiny, and the State must carry the burden of showing the law is substantially related to an important interest -- in Skrmetti the State failed that burden, so plaintiffs showed a substantial likelihood of success.
“the Court finds that Defendants have not met their burden of showing that SB1 is substantially related to an important government interest as to survive intermediate scrutiny. ... Plaintiffs have therefore demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their due process claim.”
Section 1983 deliberate-indifference: requires non-conclusory facts tying the specific defendant/policy to the particular constitutional injury -- generalized corporate-wide understaffing or 'profit over safety' allegations, even backed by audits and other lawsuits, do not plausibly plead causation or subjective awareness (applying Caraway v. CoreCivic).
“Plaintiffs here, much like in Caraway, fail to allege non-conclusory facts demonstrating that CoreCivic’s staffing policies directly caused Allen’s death.”
Procedural preferences
On dismissing the federal anchor claims he declines supplemental jurisdiction over pendent state-law claims and dismisses them WITHOUT prejudice (refilable in Tennessee state court), reserving with-prejudice dismissal for the federal claims.
“the Court declines to exercise jurisdiction over Plaintiffs' state-law claims pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3), and Plaintiffs' state-law claims will be DISMISSED without prejudice.”
Writes long, methodical opinions that carefully separate well-pleaded facts from conclusory allegations under Twombly/Iqbal, expressly flagging which allegations he declines to accept as true and why.
“The Court declines to accept this fact as true because Plaintiffs have not alleged enough factual matter to make this serious allegation (or murder) plausible.”
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 = 1 |
Granted: 1 | counts only |
| Preliminary injunction N = 1 |
Granted in part: 1 | counts only |
| Motions to dismiss N = 1 |
Granted: 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.
“Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. No. 54) is GRANTED, and Plaintiff's claims are DISMISSED.”
“In light of the Court’s findings provided herein, the Motion at Doc. No. 21 will be granted in part and denied in part.”
“the Court GRANTS Defendants' Motion to Dismiss. (Doc. No. 60). Plaintiffs' federal claims are DISMISSED with prejudice. ... Plaintiffs' state-law claims will be DISMISSED without prejudice.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median case duration in the sampled dockets: 372 days (N = 5).
High-profile general-civil + criminal docket of a Nashville district judge. Notable: he draws many constitutional challenges to Tennessee statutes captioned 'v. Skrmetti' (the TN Attorney General) -- the L.W. gender-affirming-care case (SCOTUS), NetChoice (social-media regulation), and AbbVie / AstraZeneca (drug-pricing) -- plus federal FCA qui tam, prisoner sec.1983 (incl. CoreCivic private-prison death cases), sec.2255 motions, employment, and TAS Rights Management (Taylor Swift IP) trademark enforcement. Heavy federal criminal share. NOT a grant rate -- caseload composition only.