Joseph Louis Tauro
Appointed by President Richard M. Nixon in 1972 and confirmed by voice vote, Joseph Louis Tauro was a Judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. He earned a law degree from Cornell Law School in 1956. Rulings & record ↓ Sources ↓
- Lived
- 1931–2018
- Appointed by
- Richard M. Nixon, 1972
- Confirmed
- by voice vote
- Education
- Brown 1953 · Cornell Law School 1956
- Succeeded
- Francis Joseph William Ford
- Succeeded by
- Leo Theodore Sorokin
Federal judicial service
| Year | Court | Appointed by | Vote |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1972 | District of Massachusetts succeeded Francis Joseph William Ford | Nixon (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
| Brown University | A.B. | 1953 |
| Cornell Law School | LL.B. | 1956 |
Judicial Record
Caseload & case types
In our data, Tauro was assigned 5,486 district-court cases (1975–2014). Median time from filing to termination: 315 days across 5,484 closed cases.
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 176 of Tauro’s decisions reviewed on the merits by the U.S. courts of appeals in our data, 160 were affirmed, 10 reversed or vacated, and 6 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, Tauro authored 525 published opinions for the court (1973–2011). Most cited: Sprint Spectrum L.P. v. Town of Easton (59 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A selective record from published opinions in the CourtListener corpus, not every ruling; most unpublished district orders are not included.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
| Year | Case | Citation | Cited |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Sprint Spectrum L.P. v. Town of Easton | 982 F. Supp. 47 | 59 |
| 1979 | Rogers v. Okin | 478 F. Supp. 1342 | 53 |
| 2010 | Rohm & Haas Electronic Materials, LLC v. Electronic Circuits Supplies, Inc. | 759 F. Supp. 2d 110 | 50 |
| 1990 | Shipley Co., Inc. v. Clark | 728 F. Supp. 818 | 48 |
| 1989 | Hurley v. Federal Deposit Ins. Corp. | 719 F. Supp. 27 | 46 |
| 1996 | Greebel v. FTP Software, Inc. | 939 F. Supp. 57 | 45 |
| 1990 | Citizens to End Animal Suffering & Exploitation, Inc. v. Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Inc. | 745 F. Supp. 65 | 41 |
| 2006 | McMann v. Doe | 460 F. Supp. 2d 259 | 39 |
| 1976 | Walsh v. National Seating Co., Inc. | 411 F. Supp. 564 | 37 |
| 1988 | Garside Ex Rel. Garside v. Osco Drug, Inc. | 702 F. Supp. 19 | 35 |
| 1989 | Tauriac v. Polaroid Corporation | 716 F. Supp. 672 | 33 |
| 1986 | Eastern Corporate Federal Credit Union v. Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. | 639 F. Supp. 1532 | 33 |
| 1979 | Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. v. Ouimet Corp. | 470 F. Supp. 945 | 33 |
| 1996 | Weiler v. Shalala | 922 F. Supp. 689 | 30 |
| 1982 | Kaufman v. Magid | 539 F. Supp. 1088 | 30 |
Showing the 15 most-cited of 525 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 Joseph Louis Tauro?
- President Richard M. Nixon appointed Joseph Louis Tauro to the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in 1972.
- Was Joseph Louis Tauro appointed by a Democrat or a Republican?
- Joseph Louis Tauro was appointed by President Richard M. Nixon, a Republican. JudicialFinder records the appointing president's party, not a judge's own politics.
- What was Joseph Louis Tauro's confirmation vote?
- Joseph Louis Tauro was confirmed by voice vote on October 12, 1972. No senator-by-senator tally was recorded.
- Which court was Joseph Louis Tauro on?
- Joseph Louis Tauro was a Judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
Sources
Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.
- FJC Biographical Directory
- Wikidata
- Portrait: United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons
- CourtListener bulk data (Free Law Project): authored opinions & citation counts
How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources
See something wrong? Report an error. Fixes are logged in the corrections log.
46 years on the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Data as of 2026-08-10. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).