Thomas Selby Ellis III
How Judge III decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
He decides cases on the plain text of the governing instrument and will not rewrite a contract or plan to reach a 'wiser' result. In an ERISA reimbursement dispute he held the plan's 'third party tortfeasor' language controlled and refused to stretch it to capture a recovery from the participant's employer, even while acknowledging the plan could have been drafted more broadly.
“Although it may have been wiser to write the Plan to reach those kinds of recoveries so that the Plan was not paying medical expenses that were also covered by third parties, this Plan, as written, does not cover those circumstances.”
On summary judgment he draws practical, fact-specific lines rather than bright-line rules a party urges. In an FMLA case he distinguished actionable interference (asking an employee to do work while on leave) from the de minimis or non-work calls the plaintiff actually received, and rejected the proposed rule that an employer must affirmatively tell an employee not to work.
“actionable FMLA interference does not include de minimis work-related contact, such as a telephone call to request client contact information or a call to update an employee about news in the workplace.”
He follows controlling Supreme Court retroactivity doctrine to its conclusion even for the most serious sentences. Granting a juvenile-LWOP habeas writ, he applied Miller and Montgomery and excused exhaustion because the state's own decisions had closed every available avenue of relief.
“because Miller is retroactive and applicable here, a writ must issue entitling Crawford to be resentenced so that his youth can be taken into account.”
Rigorously textualist: he resolves statutory ambiguity by close reading of structure and cross-references, refusing interpretations that render language redundant, and checks the result against legislative history -- here narrowing 26 U.S.C. 7434(a) to fraud about the AMOUNT paid, dismissing a Form-1099-vs-W-2 misclassification theory.
“7434(a) must be read to provide a private cause of action only where a defendant willfully files information returns that misrepresent the amount of payments made.”
He will reconsider and reverse his OWN prior ruling sua sponte when further analysis convinces him it was wrong -- vacating his earlier grant of partial summary judgment to the insured and instead holding the title-policy Exclusion barred coverage.
“the October 30, 2008, Order ... granting Murnan, as Trustee, partial summary judgment is VACATED IN PART ... summary judgment is GRANTED IN PART to Stewart Title”
Procedural preferences
When a Virginia court lacks personal jurisdiction he favors transferring the case to a proper forum over dismissing it, to preserve a good-faith plaintiff's claims and avoid the cost of refiling -- and he will pick the transferee district himself (here the defendant's state of incorporation) under 28 U.S.C. 1406/1631 rather than grant the defendant's preferred 1404 transfer.
“district courts generally favor transfer over dismissal, unless there is evidence that a case was brought in an improper venue in bad faith or to harass defendants.”
He expects litigants to use the right procedural tool at the right time. He denied sanctions against a firm that refused settlement, pointing out the movant could simply have made a Rule 68 offer of judgment to shift post-offer costs, and he treats fee-shifting and sanctions as reserved for genuinely exceptional conduct, not ordinary hard-fought litigation.
“Liberty could have limited the impact of O'Hagan's refusal to settle by making an offer of judgment pursuant to Rule 68, Fed. R. Civ. P.”
He enforces the Eastern District of Virginia's Local Rule 56(B) requirement that summary-judgment briefs list undisputed facts in numbered paragraphs with matching responses -- repeatedly noting compliance or non-compliance -- though he will still reach the merits where the essential facts are undisputed despite a party's formatting lapse.
“Pursuant to Local Rule 56(B) and the Rule 16(b) Scheduling Order issued in this case, a motion for summary judgment must contain a separately captioned section listing in numbered-paragraph form all material facts as to which the movant contends no genuine dispute exists.”
On personal jurisdiction he requires a CLAIM-SPECIFIC specific-jurisdiction analysis -- rejecting any 'ancillary' theory by which one forum-related claim drags unrelated claims into court -- dismissing the claim whose acts occurred abroad while letting the forum-connected contract claim proceed.
“absent general jurisdiction, specific jurisdiction must be established for each alleged claim; failure to do so for any alleged claim requires ... dismissal or transfer of that claim.”
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 = 11 |
Granted: 3Granted in part: 3Denied: 5 | 55% granted |
| Motions to dismiss N = 7 |
Granted: 1Granted in part: 4Denied: 1Moot / procedural: 1 | counts only |
| Habeas petition N = 1 |
Granted: 1 | counts only |
| Motion for sanctions N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Motion for attorney fees N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Motion to vacate 2255 N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Motion for judgment on pleadings N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Motion for witness subpoena N = 1 |
Granted in part: 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.
“because the record reflects a lack of personal jurisdiction over defendant, and because the interests of justice counsel in favor of transfer to Delaware pursuant to ss 1406 and 1631, the matter is appropriately transferred to the United States District Court for the District- of Delaware.”
“Crawford's petition for writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. s 2254 must be granted and his March 15,' 2007 life sentences without the possibility of parole imposed in the Prince William County Circuit Court must be vacated, and this matter must now be remanded to the Prince William County Circuit Court for resentencing”
“defendant's motion for summary judgment must be *690granted with respect to plaintiff's FMLA interference claim and denied with respect to plaintiff's FMLA retaliation claim, and plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on mitigation must be denied.”
“plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on mitigation must be denied.”
“It is hereby ORDERED that O'Hagan's motion for summary judgment is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART (Doc. 64). It is DENIED with respect to O'Hagan's request for prejudgment interest. It is GRANTED in all other respects.”
“It is further ORDERED that Liberty's motion for sanctions is DENIED (Doc. 73).”
“In sum, defendant has not recovered from a third party tortfeasor; he recovered from his employer. Accordingly, summary judgment must be granted in favor of defendant and against plaintiff.”
“summary judgment must be granted in favor of defendant and against plaintiff.”
“because this case is not "exceptional," plaintiff's motion for attorney's fees must be denied.”
“USClS's motion for summary judgment must be granted, and Yemer's motion must be denied.”
“USClS's motion for summary judgment must be granted, and Yemer's motion must be denied.”
“Accordingly, for the reasons stated here, plaintiffs motion for partial summary judgment must be denied.”
“For the reasons stated below, defendant's motion must be denied.”
“For the foregoing reasons, defendants', motion to dismiss must be denied.”
“a bench ruling issued answering this question in the affirmative, and an Order issued denying the motion for judgment on the pleadings.”
“For the reasons stated in this Memorandum Opinion, the Union's claim must be submitted to arbitration. Accordingly, WMATA's motion to dismiss will be granted by separate order.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
NATURE-OF-SUIT (from the enumerated dockets, illustrative not a counted population): the 2019 cohort is a general civil mix (personal injury, insurance/contract, franchising, prisoner civil rights, Social Security, trademark/IP); the 2023 cohort is overwhelmingly immigration/naturalization mandamus against USCIS/Mayorkas/Donis -- a batch Ellis took on senior status. Best-known matters are CRIMINAL and NOT in any counted cohort (Lindh, Rosen/AIPAC, El-Masri, Jefferson, Manafort, Mallory).