Eastern District of North Carolina / Appointed 1982 / Served to 2019

James Carroll Fox

Judge, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina

Appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1982 and confirmed by voice vote, James Carroll Fox was a Judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. He earned a law degree from University of North Carolina School of Law in 1957. Rulings & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived
1928–2019
Appointed by
Ronald Reagan, 1982
Confirmed
by voice vote
Education
University of North Carolina 1950 · University of North Carolina Law 1957
Succeeded by
Louise W. Flanagan

Federal judicial service

YearCourtAppointed byVote
1982Eastern District of North CarolinaReagan (R)Voice vote

Party letters show the appointing president’s party, not the judge’s own. A voice vote means the chamber approved aloud. No senator-by-senator tally is recorded.

Confirmation vote

Voice vote

The Senate approved this confirmation aloud, with no senator-by-senator tally recorded. Recorded roll-call votes begin in 1989.

Education

Judicial Record

Caseload & case types

In our data, Fox was assigned 6,149 district-court cases (1985–2017). Median time from filing to termination: 202 days across 6,148 closed cases.

Prisoner & habeas42%
Contract16%
Personal-injury torts11%
Civil rights10%
Other federal statutes5%
Labor & ERISA3%
Other13%

Case assignment is from CourtListener’s PACER-derived docket records: a partial sample, not a complete caseload, reflecting the judge last assigned each case. How we count.

On appeal

Of 447 of Fox’s decisions reviewed on the merits by the U.S. courts of appeals in our data, 382 were affirmed, 39 reversed or vacated, and 26 affirmed in part and reversed in part. This is a historical count of appellate outcomes for cases we could match, not a judgment of the judge, and not a complete record. How we count.

In our data, Fox authored 92 published opinions for the court (1983–2011). Most cited: Reigel v. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of North Carolina (75 citations).

A selective record from published opinions in the CourtListener corpus, not every ruling; most unpublished district orders are not included. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge.

Recent & notable rulings

Showing the 15 most-cited of 92 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

Who appointed James Carroll Fox?
President Ronald Reagan appointed James Carroll Fox to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina in 1982.
Was James Carroll Fox appointed by a Democrat or a Republican?
James Carroll Fox was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, a Republican. JudicialFinder records the appointing president's party, not a judge's own politics.
What was James Carroll Fox's confirmation vote?
James Carroll Fox was confirmed by voice vote on September 29, 1982. No senator-by-senator tally was recorded.
Which court was James Carroll Fox on?
James Carroll Fox was a Judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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36 years on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Data as of 2026-08-10. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).