Dwane L. Tinsley

How Judge Tinsley rules, drawn from 18 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.

Court
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia
Position
Magistrate judge
Commissioned
April 8, 2013
Education
Davis & Elkins College (B.A., sociology, 1975); Howard University (M.S.W., 1978); West Virginia University College of Law (J.D., 1981)
Signed orders read
18

About Judge Tinsley

Dwane L. Tinsley has served as a United States magistrate judge for the Southern District of West Virginia since April 2013. Before his appointment, he worked as an assistant United States attorney and in private practice in West Virginia.

Judge Tinsley's practices and standing orders

The court's website lists no individual practices or standing orders of Judge Tinsley's own (checked October 9, 2026), so the court's local rules and general orders are the place to look (court page ↗).

Standing orders for every case in this court

Orders the court applies to all of its cases, whichever judge has them, as published on the court's website (checked October 9, 2026).

Key rules from these orders · The court's local rules ↗

How Judge Tinsley decides

Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.

What persuades

In the class-certification ruling, the judge focused on whether the plaintiffs had a reliable, administrable way to identify who was actually in the proposed class before reaching the merits of commonality: treating ascertainability as effectively dispositive once the class spanned a dozen separate storage fields with individualized title histories.

“Because Plaintiffs were unable to point to a reliable mechanism for determining whether putative class members fall within the class definition, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate the requisite ascertainability element; without more, a class action is simply inappropriate under the circumstances.”

In the tax-dischargeability bench trial, the judge distinguished a spouse's general awareness that household income and spending had risen from actual knowledge that a specific tax debt was going unpaid, requiring the government to show the latter and crediting evidence that one spouse had concealed the couple's tax troubles from the other.

“There is simply no evidence to suggest that Ms. Eaton knew that the Eatons' taxes were not paid at the time of that spending ... Given Mr. Eaton's apparent efforts to conceal their financial problems from Ms. Eaton, it is unlikely that she knew of their unsatisfied tax debt when she agreed to transfer their homes to her son.”

Ruling on a pro se plaintiff's motion to dismiss, the judge gave the plaintiff one chance to cure a threadbare complaint with a properly integrated amended pleading, expressly warning that simply incorporating the old complaint by reference would not do, but held the line on the renewed motion once that chance was not taken up effectively.

“the plaintiff is NOTIFIED that it will be insufficient for him to simply refer to his prior Complaint or additional documentation, or to incorporate the same by reference in the Amended Complaint; the Amended Complaint will supersede the original Complaint, and there must be one integrated document that will provide the defendant with notice of the plaintiff's claims and factual allegations.”

In a dispute over corporate-deposition topics concerning digital accessibility, the judge required specific proof of burden and allowed testimony about communications central to the plaintiffs’ claims, while narrowing other topics to the relevant educational program and period.

“Defendant has not met that burden—particularly where, as here, the discovery sought—communications from Mr. Rogers”

Signed rulings

A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.

Burdette v. Colvin
2:16-cv-01646 · 2017-03-31
Social security appeal (plaintiff) Granted

“MEMORANDUM OPINION: Granting Plaintiff's 13 Brief In Support of Judgment on the Pleadings; denying Defendant's 14 Brief In Support of Judgment on the Pleadings; directing that this matter is reversed and remanded for further administrative proceedings pursuant to the fourth sentence of 42 U.S.C. Section 405(g) and this matter is dismissed from the docket of this Court.”

Cunningham v. Berryhill
3:16-cv-02525 · 2017-03-31
Social security appeal (plaintiff) Denied

“MEMORANDUM OPINION denying Plaintiff's 11 Brief in Support of Judgment on the Pleadings; granting Defendant's 12 Brief in Support of Defendant's Decision; affirming the final decision of the Commissioner and dismissing this matter from the docket of this Court.”

Stearns v. Berryhill
3:16-cv-06710 · 2017-09-20
Social security appeal (plaintiff) Granted

“MEMORANDUM OPINION granting Plaintiff's 11 Brief in Support of Judgment on the Pleadings to the extent Claimant seeks remand; denying Defendant's 14 Brief in Support of Judgment on the Pleadings; remanding the final decision of the Commissioner for further proceedings pursuant to the fourth sentence of 42 U.S.C. Section 405(g); and dismissing this matter from this Court's docket.”

Anderson v. Kanawha Valley Regional Transportation Authority
2:16-cv-08079 · 2017-03-23
Motions to dismiss (defendant) Denied

“MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER denying without prejudice defendant's 3 Motion to Dismiss; the plaintiff is granted leave to file an Amended Complaint in an attempt to cure the deficiencies addressed more fully herein.”

Anderson v. Kanawha Valley Regional Transportation Authority
2:16-cv-08079 · 2018-03-30
Motions to dismiss (defendant) Granted

“MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER directing the defendant's 14 Renewed Motion to Dismiss is GRANTED and the Amended Complaint and this civil action are hereby DISMISSED without prejudice; the plaintiff's 16 Letter-Form Motion for Hearing is DENIED.”

Brender v. Fruth Pharmacy, Inc.
2:16-cv-09403 · 2017-10-23
Motion in limine (plaintiff) Granted in part

“ORDER granting in part 37 MOTION by Carole Brender in Limine to Prohibit Photographs by the defendant that do not accurately depict the incident scene; the plaintiff also requested an adverse instruction for spoliation of evidence regarding defendant's intentional conduct in spoliating the evidence of the hidden tripping hazard; the Court reserves ruling on plaintiff's motion until trial.”

Motion in limine (defendant) Granted

“granting Defendant's 40 OMNIBUS MOTIONS in Limine.”

Brender v. Fruth Pharmacy, Inc.
2:16-cv-09403 · 2017-11-02
Summary judgment (defendant) Denied

“ORDER denying 33 MOTION by Fruth Pharmacy, Inc. for Summary Judgment.”

United States v. Eaton
2:17-cv-01220 · 2018-01-30
Motions to dismiss (plaintiff) Granted

“ORDER granting 17 UNOPPOSED MOTION to Extend Briefing Deadlines; the parties to have 30 days in which to conclude settlement negotiations and as set forth more fully herein; denying as moot the United States' 18 REQUEST for Entry of Default of Lucinda L. Eaton; granting 23 JOINT MOTION to Dismiss Amended Complaint as to the State of West Virginia.”

United States v. Eaton
2:17-cv-01220 · 2020-04-17
Summary judgment (plaintiff) Granted in part

“Before this Court is the Government's motion for summary judgment. (ECF No. 70.) For the reasons explained more fully herein, the motion is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART. ... the Eatons' tax liabilities are not dischargeable under 11 U.S.C. Section 523(a)(1)(C) as to Mr. Eaton, but there is a question of fact as to whether those liabilities are dischargeable as to Ms. Eaton.”

United States v. Eaton
2:17-cv-01220 · 2020-05-28
Tax dischargeability determination (plaintiff) Denied

“This matter is before this Court following a bench trial held on May 22, 2020, as to the issue of whether Defendant Lucinda L. Eaton's federal tax liabilities for tax year 2006 are excepted from discharge in her bankruptcy proceedings pursuant to 11 U.S.C. Section 523(a)(1)(C). For the reasons explained more fully herein, this Court FINDS that they are not so excepted.”

Young v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company
2:18-cv-01469 · 2019-12-13
Summary judgment (plaintiff) Denied

“Before this Court are the parties' cross-motions for summary judgment. (ECF Nos. 22, 23.) For the reasons explained more fully herein, Plaintiff's motion for summary judgment (ECF No. 22) is DENIED.”

Summary judgment (defendant) Granted

“Defendant's motion for summary judgment (ECF No. 23) is GRANTED.”

Truist Bank v. Capitol Valley Contracting, Inc.
2:18-cv-01384 · 2020-05-07
Summary judgment (plaintiff) Granted in part

“Before this Court is Truist's motion for summary judgment. (ECF No. 39.) For the reasons explained more fully herein, the motion is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART.”

Caseload & timing

From public federal docket records for this judge.

  • The sampled caseload includes consent-jurisdiction Social Security disability appeals, civil-rights and premises-liability suits removed from or filed in federal court, a federal tax-collection action, ERISA and commercial-lending disputes, a large multi-party surety-bond and construction-claims suit in which this judge resolved referred discovery motions, and a consolidated natural-gas storage-field class action resolved entirely by party consent under 28 U.S.C.
  • Section 636(c). His criminal duty-magistrate docket (search-warrant applications, initial appearances, and detention hearings) runs continuously through the present but was not separately sampled for stats here.

Pending matters in the official report

Reported by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts under the Civil Justice Reform Act, as of March 31, 2026.

Motions pending more than six months0
Bench trials submitted more than six months0
Bankruptcy appeals pending more than six months0
Social Security appeals pending more than six months0
Civil cases pending more than three years0
ReportMotions over six monthsCases over three years
Mar 202600
Sep 202500
Mar 202500
Sep 202400
Mar 202400
Sep 202300
Mar 202300
Sep 202200
Mar 202200
Sep 202100
Mar 202100
Sep 202000

A snapshot on that date: matters listed may since have been decided or reassigned. A motion referred to a magistrate judge is counted for both judges. Motions in multidistrict litigation, section 2255 cases and Social Security appeals are not counted, and a very large three-year count is generally a multidistrict docket. Source: Appendix A of the report (PDF); about the report.

How long civil cases take in this court

For the whole of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, not for Judge Tinsley: median time from filing to disposition of the civil cases the court closed in the 12 months ending September 30, 2025, as reported by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

CasesMedian time
All civil cases closed47010 months
Closed with no court action163 months
Closed before pretrial44110.1 months
Closed during or after pretrial1019.5 months
Closed during trial3not reported
12 months endingCases closedMedian time
Sep 202547010 months
Sep 202446910.6 months
Sep 202347311.1 months
Sep 202247111.4 months
Sep 202193914.9 months
Sep 20203,01362.7 months
Sep 201941,34253.9 months

The table leaves out prisoner petitions, land condemnations, deportation reviews, recovery of overpayments and enforcement of judgments, and reports no median for fewer than 10 cases. A district that closed a large multidistrict litigation in the period shows very large counts and long medians for that year. Source: Table C-5, U.S. District Courts (spreadsheet).

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