🧪 TEST MODE ACTIVE Use test card: 4242 4242 4242 4242

Jon Stuart Scoles

United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa magistrate 2 signed orders read

How Judge Scoles decides

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

What persuades

In APA record-review of agency action, Scoles deferred to EPA's statutory reading: waters whose quality impairment is not caused by a 'pollutant' need not appear on the Clean Water Act Section 303(d) impaired-waters list -- a deference-to-the-agency disposition that resolved the case for the government.

“The [c]ourt concludes that EPA properly determined that where the water quality impairment is not caused by pollutants, the water need not be included on the Section 303(d) list.”

Procedural preferences

On objections to his R&Rs, the district judge's de novo review of Scoles' work tends to leave his findings intact: where the only objection targets a statement the court reads as dicta (an illustrative example, not a holding), the objection does not disturb the recommendation and the R&R is adopted in full.

“Because the specific statement at issue was used merely in the context of an example -- not in the context of a holding or finding -- it has no bearing on the outcome of the case and is considered dicta. ... the court shall adopt Judge Scoles's December 17, 2007 Report and Recommendation.”

Signed rulings

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

Thomas v. United States Environmental Protection Agency (Sierra Club)
1:06-cv-00115-LRR · 2008-03-20
Apa merits review (plaintiff) Denied

“The court hereby ADOPTS the Report and Recommendation (docket no. 48) and DISMISSES the Complaint (Docket no. 1).”

Graves v. City of Durant
1:09-cv-00061-JSS · 2010-03-05
Summary judgment (unclear) Granted in part

“ORDER granting in part and denying in part 19 Motion for Summary Judgment. Signed by Magistrate Judge Jon S Scoles on 3/5/10.”

Caseload & timing

From public federal docket records for this judge.

The reviewed consent-jurisdiction civil cases, measured from filing through termination, are weighted toward Social Security appeals, with additional insurance, personal-injury, tax, and product-liability matters.

Put Judge Scoles's record to work

Ezel drafts and answers grounded in this exact profile: how Judge Scoles actually rules, not a generic AI guess.

Opens in Ezel Pro. Every answer is grounded in Judge Scoles's own signed orders and cites them.