Raymond Alvin Jackson
How Judge Jackson decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
He construes the removal statutes strictly and resolves jurisdictional doubt in favor of remand, holding the removing party to its burden of proving complete diversity -- and applying Carden, he treats an LLC's or unincorporated association's citizenship as that of ALL its members.
“If federal jurisdiction is doubtful, remand to state court is required.”
On a Rule 12(b)(6) motion he parses each theory of the complaint separately, dismissing the inadequately pled claims while preserving those that clear the Twombly/Iqbal plausibility bar -- here splitting a multi-ground TILA challenge.
“Defendant's Motion to Dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part.”
Procedural preferences
On an IDEA administrative appeal he does not defer wholesale to the due-process hearing officer; he conducts a detailed, count-by-count review and affirms the supported findings while reversing the unsupported ones.
“the final decision of the due process hearing officer is AFFIRMED in part and REVERSED in part.”
He reserves removal-related fee awards for bad-faith or patently baseless removals, declining to shift fees where the removing party had an objectively reasonable basis.
“This Court has generally declined to award attorneys fees unless it was patently obvious that federal jurisdiction was lacking or the notice of removal was filed in bad faith.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“Based on the foregoing reasons, Plaintiffs' Motion to Remand is GRANTED and the request for attorneys fees and costs's DENIED.”
“the Court finds that the record does not reflect that Defendants removed this case in bad faith or to prolong the litigation. Accordingly, the Court will exercise its discretion to deny Plaintiffs an award of attorneys fees and expenses.”
“Defendants' Motions (# 3, # 4, #5, #8, and # 13) are DISMISSED as moot.”
Bench-trial judgment in an admiralty negligence action under the Public Vessels Act and the Suits in Admiralty Act, 33 U.S.C. 905(b), brought by a civilian installation technician whose foot was amputated after a Navy forklift ran over it aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt. After a three-day trial, Jackson awarded judgment to the United States. An earlier summary-judgment opinion in the consolidated case, denying the plaintiff's motion and granting co-defendant Wiggins's motion, is a separate order reported at 694 F. Supp. 2d 460. Byline: 'RAYMOND A. JACKSON, District Judge.'
“On January 27, 2010, the Court denied Plaintiffs Motion and granted Defendant's Motion.”
“Plaintiff School Board of the City of Norfolk's Motion for Summary Judgment is DENIED in part and GRANTED in part; ... and the final decision of the due process hearing officer is AFFIRMED in part and REVERSED in part.”
“Defendant Brown's Motion for Summary Judgment is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part;”
“Defendant's Motion to Dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Senior judge sitting in the Norfolk and Newport News Divisions. His docket runs heavily to pro-se prisoner civil-rights suits and state/federal habeas petitions (28 U.S.C. 2254/2241), Social Security disability appeals, and short diversity removals, alongside a thinner band of contested commercial litigation (diversity fraud, consumer credit/FCRA, construction-finance and surety disputes) and employment cases. Qualitative mix from the enumerated dockets, not a counted distribution.
Put Judge Jackson's record to work
Ezel drafts and answers grounded in this exact profile: how Judge Jackson actually rules, not a generic AI guess.
Opens in Ezel Pro. Every answer is grounded in Judge Jackson's own signed orders and cites them.