James Donato | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Judge of theUnited States District Court for the Northern District of California | |
| Assumed office February 26, 2014 | |
| Appointed by | Barack Obama |
| Preceded by | James Ware |
| Personal details | |
| Born | James Joseph Donato 1960 (age 65–66) Pasadena, California, U.S. |
| Residence | Berkeley, California |
| Education | University of California, Berkeley (BA) Harvard University (MA) Stanford University (JD) |
James Joseph Donato[1] (born in 1960) is an American attorney and judge. He has served asUnited States district judge of theUnited States District Court for the Northern District of California since 2014.
Donato was born in 1960, inPasadena, California.[2][3] He received aBachelor of Arts degree in 1983 from theUniversity of California, Berkeley. He received aMaster of Arts degree in 1984 fromHarvard University. He received aJuris Doctor in 1988 fromStanford Law School, where he was an executive board member of theStanford Law Review.
Donato served as alaw clerk for JudgeProcter Ralph Hug Jr. of theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 1988 to 1989. From 1990 to 1993, he was anassociate at the law firm ofMorrison & Foerster LLP in San Francisco. He served as a deputy city attorney in theSan Francisco City Attorney's Office from 1993 to 1996. He served as apartner atCooley LLP from 1996 to 2009.
From 2009 to 2014 he served as a litigation partner in theSan Francisco office ofShearman & Sterling LLP. His practice concentrated onantitrust litigation andclass action lawsuits.[4] He is a past president of the Bar Association of San Francisco.[5]
On June 20, 2013, PresidentBarack Obama nominated Donato to serve as a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, to the seat vacated by JudgeJames Ware, who retired on August 31, 2012. His nomination was submitted to theSenate Judiciary Committee.[4]
Donato's nomination hearing was held on September 11, 2013, before the committee. On October 31, 2013, Donato was unanimously reported out of the committee. On February 12, 2014, Senate Majority LeaderHarry Reid filed forcloture on Donato's nomination. On February 25, 2014, theUnited States Senate invoked cloture on Donato’s nomination by a 55–42 vote, with 1 senator voted present.[6] Later that day the nomination was confirmed by a 90–5 vote.[7] Donato received his judicial commission on February 26, 2014.[5]
On January 8, 2021, Donato issued an order blocking the implementation of a rule issued by theUnited States Department of Homeland Security andUnited States Department of Justice that would have created new restrictions for those seekingasylum in the United States. Donato ruled that purported ActingSecretary of Homeland SecurityChad Wolf lacked authority to impose the rule because he had not been properly appointed to his position. Donato emphasized that he was the fifth federal judge to find that Wolf's appointment was unlawful and criticized the government for recycling the same arguments it had used to unsuccessfully defend Wolf's appointment in the past, writing: "In effect, the government keeps crashing the same car into a gate, hoping that someday it might break through."[8][9][10]
Wolf resigned his post three days after Donato's ruling—and five days after theJanuary 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol—saying his action was "warranted by recent events, including the ongoing and meritless court rulings regarding the validity of my authority as Acting secretary."[11]
In May 2020, Donato ruled that apatent for “Digital Cameras Using Multiple Sensors with Multiple Lenses" was invalid because it was directed at an abstract idea underAlice Corp. v. CLS Bank International. Donato said that the patent's representative claim was simply "drawn to the abstract idea of taking two pictures and using those pictures to enhance each other in some way," which is a practice that has been known "[s]ince the earliest days of the photographic medium."[12] After the plaintiff was given an opportunity to amend hiscomplaint, Donato again ruled that the patent was invalid.[13] TheUnited States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld Donato's ruling in a 2-1 decision.[14]
On August 26, 2020, Donato granted apreliminary injunction to eight states and four school districts that had sued to prevent theUnited States Department of Education and theUnited States Secretary of Education from implementing a rule imposing conditions on how funds allocated under theCARES Act would be shared between public and private schools. The rule allocated funds based on a school's total enrollment, rather than on the number of low-income students.[15] It was controversial due to arguments that it diverted relief funds for theCOVID-19 pandemic from public schools to private schools.[16][17] Donato blocked the Department of Education and SecretaryBetsy DeVos from enforcing this rule, saying their arguments in favor of it were a form of "'interpretive jiggery-pokery' in the extreme" (quoting JusticeAntonin Scalia's dissent inKing v. Burwell).[15][18]
In February 2021, Donato approved a $650 million settlement betweenFacebook and a class of plaintiffs suing under the IllinoisBiometric Information Privacy Act. Donato had previously rejected the settlement when it was worth only $550 million, and praised the revised settlement as "a major win for consumers in the hotly contested area of digital privacy."[19][20] Two class members appealed to theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which affirmed Donato's approval of the settlement on March 17, 2022.[21]
Also in February 2021, Donato sentenced formerCalifornia State AssemblymanTerrence Goggin to one year and one day in prison formoney laundering, and ordered Goggin to pay $685,000 in restitution for his victims.[22][23][24]
In May 2022, Donato dismissed a lawsuit brought by then-formerPresidentDonald Trump against thesocial media companyTwitter (nowX) over its decision to permanently remove him from the Twitter platform.[25][26]
On February 28, 2024, Donato ruled that California's permanent prohibition of individuals who have had their convictions vacated, set aside, or dismissed, from possessing firearms violated the Second Amendment as applied to the individual Plaintiffs.[27]
| Legal offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Judge of theUnited States District Court for the Northern District of California 2014–present | Incumbent |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
