Michael Stefan Nachmanoff
How Judge Nachmanoff decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
Textualist on jurisdictional/preclusion statutes: he reads the FTCA judgment bar's plain language to preclude a same-conduct Bivens claim, and (per Brownback) treats a scope-of-employment FTCA dismissal as a merits judgment that triggers the bar.
“Put simply, the plain language of 28 U.S.C. § 2676 could not be clearer: this action cannot proceed.”
Procedural preferences
He resolves facial 12(b)(6) sufficiency challenges before allowing discovery: a plaintiff cannot use discovery to manufacture a claim that the complaint, as pleaded, fails to state. Expect a discovery motion filed to defeat a pending MTD to be denied.
“Discovery should follow the filing of a well-pleaded complaint. It is not a device to enable a plaintiff to make a case when his complaint has failed to state a claim.”
As a magistrate he flagged threshold venue / personal-jurisdiction defects early and recommended dismissal where the suit had no connection to Virginia, rather than reaching the parties' default-related motions.
“Plaintiff's Complaint does not allege that Defendant has any ties to Virginia or that the alleged conduct occurred within Virginia. The alleged violations took place in Chicago, Illinois, where UICCOM is located.”
Cautions
On the procedural posture of multi-suit litigation: a plaintiff who pursues both an FTCA claim and a Bivens claim on the same facts risks losing the Bivens claim entirely once any FTCA judgment is entered.
“a plaintiff who pursues both remedies "runs the risk that [the] constitutional claim will be subject to the FTCA's 'judgment bar' provision."”
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.
| Motions to dismiss N = 1 |
Granted: 1 | counts only |
| Motion for discovery 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.
“plaintiff's motion for discovery will be denied, and defendants' motions to dismiss will be granted.”
“Accordingly, the Court will deny plaintiff's motion for discovery and proceed to assess defendants' Motions to Dismiss, which question the sufficiency of the allegations in the complaint.”
MAGISTRATE-ERA Report & Recommendation (a recommendation to the district judge, NOT a final ruling -- and from his prior magistrate role -- so EXCLUDED from district motion stats; recorded for the pattern layer + as an order read). Pro se Title IX / defamation suit by a former University of Illinois Chicago medical student against a UIC dean. On a plaintiff's motion for default judgment and a defendant's motion to set aside default, Nachmanoff (then a U.S. Magistrate Judge) recommended the complaint be DISMISSED for lack of personal jurisdiction and improper venue -- all events occurred in Chicago, Illinois, with no Virginia ties. Adoption by the district judge not verified. (GovInfo packaged this E.D. Va. R&R oddly under an ilnd package id.) Grounding quote: 'the undersigned recommends that Plaintiff's Complaint against Defendant be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.'
APPELLATE panel opinion AUTHORED by Nachmanoff sitting by designation on the Fourth Circuit (joined by Judges Agee and Richardson) -- not a district-court motion ruling, so EXCLUDED from district motion stats; recorded for the pattern layer. A federal inmate brought parallel Bivens and FTCA suits over alleged FBOP sexual abuse; after a merits judgment dismissed the FTCA claim, the panel held the FTCA judgment bar (28 U.S.C. 2676) precludes the still-pending Bivens appeal arising from the same conduct, and dismissed the appeal. Shows his textualist reading of the judgment bar and his treatment of a jurisdictional FTCA dismissal as a 'judgment on the merits' under Brownback. Grounding quote: 'Put simply, the plain language of 28 U.S.C. § 2676 could not be clearer: this action cannot proceed.'
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median motion-to-ruling time: 33 days (N = 6).
From the enumerated/sampled dockets (illustrative, not a counted population): Nachmanoff's Alexandria civil docket includes APA/immigration-agency review (USCIS asylum delay, FBI/USCIS naturalization mandamus), insurance declaratory-judgment, contract, prisoner civil-rights, and Section 2255 vacate-sentence petitions; his mid-2026 active assignments are heavily alien-detainee habeas (28 U.S.C. 2241). His best-known matter (the 2025-26 United States v. Comey prosecution) is NOT in the duration cohort below.