Dwane L. Tinsley
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.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“granting Defendant's 40 OMNIBUS MOTIONS in Limine.”
“ORDER denying 33 MOTION by Fruth Pharmacy, Inc. for Summary Judgment.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Defendant's motion for summary judgment (ECF No. 23) is GRANTED.”
“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.
Put Judge Tinsley's record to work
Ezel drafts and answers grounded in this exact profile: how Judge Tinsley actually rules, not a generic AI guess.
Opens in Ezel Pro. Every answer is grounded in Judge Tinsley's own signed orders and cites them.