Elizabeth Wilson Hanes
How Judge Hanes decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In a covenant/real-property dispute she construes a community Declaration narrowly against the developer's commercial use while enforcing it as written: the developer could not run a commercial tree farm on the golf course, and the association could enforce the Declaration's rules.
“It held that the developer could not operate a commercial tree farm on the community's golf course and that the golfing community's community association may enforce the Declaration's rules against the developer.”
Procedural preferences
She enforces contractual exhaustion/remedy prerequisites: she held the association had waived its own claims by failing to exhaust its contractual remedies, and that it could not unilaterally amend the Declaration.
“the district court also held that the community association could not unilaterally amend the Declaration and that it had waived its own claims by failing to exhaust its contractual remedies.”
She will deny premature/over-pleaded filings and reset the posture: striking an amended complaint, denying leave to amend, and denying cross-MSJs without prejudice to allow proper re-briefing before deciding the merits.
“JBWK's [45] Motion for Summary Judgment and the Association's [52] Motion for Summary Judgment are both DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE.”
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 = 4 |
Granted in part: 2Moot / procedural: 2 | counts only |
| Motions to dismiss N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Motions to strike N = 1 |
Granted: 1 | counts only |
| Motion for leave to amend 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.
“West Neck Community Association, Inc.'s [35] Motion to Dismiss is DENIED”
“JBWK, LLC's [38] Motion to Strike the Association's Amended Complaint is GRANTED”
“the Association's [43] Motion for Leave to File an Amended Complaint is DENIED”
“JBWK's [45] Motion for Summary Judgment and the Association's [52] Motion for Summary Judgment are both DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE.”
“JBWK's [45] Motion for Summary Judgment and the Association's [52] Motion for Summary Judgment are both DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE.”
“The Court will grant in part and deny in part the Association's Renewed Motion for Summary Judgment, ECF No. 64”
“will grant in part and deny in part JBWK's Renewed Motion for Summary Judgment, ECF No. 66.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median motion-to-ruling time: 294 days (N = 3).
From the enumerated dockets (illustrative, not a counted population): Hanes's Norfolk/Newport News docket runs to labor/employment (FLSA, BAE Systems, Great Lakes Dredge), maritime/admiralty, consumer (FDCPA/FCRA -- she is a former consumer-litigation attorney), real-property/covenant, prisoner civil-rights and habeas, suits against the United States, and federal criminal matters. She has also sat by designation on the Fourth Circuit (e.g. United States v. Luong, a forced-labor sentencing appeal -- she joined, did not author). Her terminated civil cases tend to run long (median ~330 days; see cohort).