Sharad Harshad Desai
How Judge Desai decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In a prisoner Eighth Amendment medical-care case, evidence that a non-examining medical director overrode a treating specialist's urgent-surgery recommendation in favor of 'conservative management' (which here meant no treatment, leaving a permanent deformity) is enough to defeat summary judgment and reach a jury on deliberate indifference and Monell custom.
“a reasonable jury could conclude that this decision was deliberately indifferent to Plaintiff’s serious medical needs”
Procedural preferences
Treats Rule 702/Daubert as a gatekeeping (not fact-finding) inquiry: an expert's failure to review every medical record, cross-specialty subject matter, and reliance on another expert's report or the plaintiff's self-reported history go to WEIGHT (cross-examination), not admissibility, where the expert has 'sufficient' facts and relevant experience.
“Rule 702 requires only that Dr. Steingart’s opinions be based on ‘sufficient’—not exhaustive—‘facts and data.’”
On Social Security appeals, even where the agency concedes ALJ error, he remands for further proceedings rather than ordering immediate benefits (credit-as-true) when the error is a failure to properly explain reasoning and outstanding issues remain.
“The Court determines in its discretion to remand for further proceedings and not apply the credit-as-true rule.”
Cautions
Cites Rule 11 and will admonish a party (including pro se) for relying on a non-existent / fabricated case citation. Do not cite hallucinated or unverified authority.
“the contrary authority Gustafson cites is a non-existent case”
Applies the District of Arizona's reconsideration standard strictly: a motion that is untimely (>14 days), merely rehashes prior arguments, or fails to show 'manifest error' ('dead wrong') will be denied.
“reconsideration is ‘an extraordinary remedy that is available only in highly unusual circumstances.’”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“Defendant Gann’s Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 185) is granted. Defendant Gann is dismissed from this action without prejudice.”
“Defendants NaphCare and Neiswonger’s Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 146) is denied.”
“Defendants Centurion, Pippins, Stewart, and Tripp’s Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 198) is granted in part and denied in part ... The motion is granted as to Defendants Pippins and Tripp, and Defendants Pippins and Tripp are dismissed from this action with prejudice. (b) The Motion is otherwise denied.”
“IT IS ORDERED that Gustafson’s motion for reconsideration (Doc. 56) is denied.”
“IT IS ORDERED that the decision of the ALJ is vacated and remanded for further administrative proceedings. ... The Court determines in its discretion to remand for further proceedings and not apply the credit-as-true rule.”
“IT IS ORDERED granting in part the Motion (Doc. 28). Defendant may have until April 25, 2025 to serve its expert disclosures under Federal Rule of Evidence 26(a)(2)(B).”
“Pending before the Court is Defendant Safeway Inc.’s (‘Safeway’) motion to exclude the opinions of Plaintiff Nolan Gorney’s expert, Dr. Michael Steingart. (Doc. 32.) For the following reasons, Safeway’s motion is denied.”
Pro se prisoner-condition case. Desai adopted the magistrate judge's recommendation (no objections filed; reviewed without de novo review under Reyna-Tapia) dismissing the second amended complaint without prejudice under Rule 41(b) for failure to comply with court orders and failure to prosecute (plaintiff never returned the service packet or responded to an order to show cause). The order resolved no pending party motion. It illustrates that this judge will dismiss for failure to prosecute after an order to show cause, but without prejudice.
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
The sampled docket is dominated by a 2026 wave of alien-detainee habeas petitions, most of them still pending, alongside Social Security appeals, prisoner civil-rights cases, employment disputes, insurance and contract matters, personal-injury removals, and patent cases. Many older matters were reassigned to Desai after he took the bench in January 2025, so they describe inherited work rather than cases he managed from filing.
Put Judge Desai's record to work
Ezel drafts and answers grounded in this exact profile: how Judge Desai actually rules, not a generic AI guess.
Opens in Ezel Pro. Every answer is grounded in Judge Desai's own signed orders and cites them.