H. Dean Buttram Jr.
Judge Buttram no longer hears cases. This profile is preserved as a historical record of how they ruled.
How Judge Buttram decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
He found a triable issue when the record could support disbelief of an employer’s stated reason for termination.
“The record contains sufficient evidence from which a reasonable jury could determine that Godiva’s articulated reason was not the true reason for its decision to terminate Ms. Hoehn”
Procedural preferences
He was willing to resolve a dispositive motion before class certification when doing so promoted judicial economy without prejudicing absent class members.
“it may be appropriate in the interest of judicial economy to resolve a motion for summary judgment or motion to dismiss prior to ruling on class certification.”
He provided advance notice and an opportunity to respond before considering summary judgment on claims the moving party had not addressed.
“Plaintiffs are given the opportunity to file, ON OR BEFORE JULY 3, 2001, any evidence and argument showing why summary judgment should not be granted on their ADEA claims.”
Cautions
He enforced the court’s required summary-judgment briefing format by treating unsupported factual assertions as admitted.
“Because of this failure, the Court will deem ‘admitted’ for summary judgment purposes all factual allegations made by Defendants in the initial statement of facts”
He distinguished offensive isolated remarks from the severe or pervasive conduct required for a hostile-work-environment claim.
“These isolated racial remarks are not in themselves sufficient to establish a claim of a racially hostile work environment.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“Defendants’ motion for summary judgment on all claims (Doc. No. 22) is due to be GRANTED;”
“Plaintiffs motion for class certification (Doc. No. 18) and Defendants’ motion to strike portions of Plaintiffs evidentiary submission in support of his motion for class certification (Doc. No. 46) are MOOT;”
“Plaintiffs motion to vacate the Court’s prior order of February 1, 2001 granting Defendants’ motion to strike and for protective order (Doc. No. 61) is due to be DENIED.”
“Moore-Handley’s motion for summary judgment (Doc. 14) is due to be GRANTED”
“the motion to strike (Doc. 23) is due to be DENIED AS MOOT.”
“Defendants’ motion for summary judgment (Doc. 20) is GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median case duration in the sampled dockets: 172.5 days (N = 50).
Median motion-to-ruling time: 122 days (N = 4).
Caseload mix and duration use 50 located cases filed after Judge Buttram’s commission; 20 earlier inherited cases were excluded from these measures. All 50 post-commission cases were later terminated. The bounded October 1998 through March 1999 slice does not establish the distribution of his full caseload.
A historical record
Judge Buttram no longer hears cases. This profile stays available as a record of how they ruled. If you're preparing for a matter, start from the court's current bench.