William Wayne Justice
Judge Justice no longer hears cases. This profile is preserved as a historical record of how they ruled.
How Judge Justice decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
He treated timely efforts to commence a case as significant when a litigant promptly cured a filing-fee issue and completed service within the rule's deadline.
“There is no evidence in this case, however, that Lowery acted in bad faith or unreasonably delayed in paying her fee.”
He distinguished statutory civil-rights claims from contract grievances and did not treat a collective-bargaining agreement as an automatic waiver of a federal forum.
“an employee such as Bush is not barred by a CBA from bringing a Title VII claim in federal court.”
He denied summary judgment when disputed medical causation and professional duties could affect both liability and qualified immunity.
“genuine issues of material fact remain with respect to underlying liability and entitlement to qualified immunity”
He enforced statutory trial deadlines and rejected ordinary docket congestion as justification for delay.
“Docket congestion is not ‘good cause’ for delay under the IAD.”
Cautions
At the pleading stage, he separated legal sufficiency from proof and declined to weigh factual support on a dismissal motion.
“at issue in a motion to dismiss is the legal sufficiency, not the factual sufficiency, of a party’s case.”
He required a federal pleading to identify an independent jurisdictional basis for common-law claims after the federal statutory theory failed.
“Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a) requires a pleading to contain ‘a short and plain statement of the grounds upon which the court’s jurisdiction depends.’”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“defendant’s motion for a jury trial in the above-entitled and numbered civil action shall be, and it is hereby, DENIED.”
“defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment shall be, and is hereby, GRANTED with respect to plaintiffs claims under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.”
“the defendant’s motion to reconsider shall be, and is hereby, DENIED.”
“the defendant’s motion for leave to appeal shall be, and is hereby, GRANTED.”
“plaintiffs motion for protective order is GRANTED.”
“the motion for a protective order, should be, and is hereby, GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART.”
“the defendant’s motion to dismiss shall be, and is hereby, DENIED.”
“the defendant’s motion for summary judgment shall be, and is hereby, DENIED.”
“the defendant’s motion for par7 tial dismissal and summary judgment shall be, and is hereby, DENIED.”
“the requested relief will be granted as to plaintiffs Crump and Jeffrey, and denied as to plaintiff Finch.”
“Upton’s motion for summary judgment shall be, and is hereby, DENIED.”
“the remaining defendants’ motion for summary judgment shall be, and is hereby, DENIED.”
“the United States’ motion to dismiss will be granted in part and denied in part.”
“The applicants’ motion for discovery therefore shall be granted in a separate order issued concurrently herewith.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median case duration in the sampled dockets: 209 days (N = 20).
The January 1990 enumeration contains twenty terminated cases and is a narrow archival slice, not a career-wide caseload measure.
A historical record
Judge Justice no longer hears cases. This profile stays available as a record of how they ruled. If you're preparing for a matter, start from the court's current bench.