Who appointed Rya Weickert Zobel?

President Jimmy Carter appointed Rya Weickert Zobel to the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in 1979.

Was Rya Weickert Zobel appointed by a Democrat or a Republican?

Rya Weickert Zobel was appointed by President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat. JudicialFinder records the appointing president's party, not a judge's own politics.

What was Rya Weickert Zobel's confirmation vote?

Rya Weickert Zobel was confirmed by voice vote on March 21, 1979. No senator-by-senator tally was recorded.

District of Massachusetts / Appointed 1979 / Served to 2026

Rya Weickert Zobel

Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts

Appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 and confirmed by voice vote, Rya Weickert Zobel was a Judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. She earned a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1956. Rulings & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1931–2026
Appointed by: Jimmy Carter, 1979
Confirmed: by voice vote
Education: Radcliffe College 1953 · Harvard Law School 1956
Succeeded by: Allison Dale Burroughs

Federal judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1979	District of Massachusetts	Carter (D)	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

Radcliffe College	A.B.	1953
Harvard Law School	LL.B.	1956

Judicial Record

Caseload & case types

In our data, Zobel was assigned 6,410 district-court cases (1973–2023). Median time from filing to termination: 326 days across 6,397 closed cases.

Personal-injury torts21%

Contract18%

Civil rights11%

Other federal statutes9%

Labor & ERISA8%

Prisoner & habeas8%

Other25%

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 310 of Zobel’s decisions reviewed on the merits by the U.S. courts of appeals in our data, 262 were affirmed, 28 reversed or vacated, and 20 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, Zobel authored 122 published opinions for the court (1979–2011). Most cited: Eagle-Picher Industries, Inc. v. Liberty Mutual Insurance (47 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
1981	Eagle-Picher Industries, Inc. v. Liberty Mutual Insurance	523 F. Supp. 110	47
1985	Crosby v. Heckler	638 F. Supp. 383	32
1980	Loeb v. Globe Newspaper Co.	489 F. Supp. 481	29
1991	Juniper Development Group v. Kahn (In Re Hemingway Transport, Inc.)	126 B.R. 656	25
1983	Sweeney v. Keystone Provident Life Insurance	578 F. Supp. 31	20
1982	Berrigan v. Greyhound Lines, Inc.	560 F. Supp. 165	18
2005	Linton v. New York Life Insurance & Annuity Corp.	392 F. Supp. 2d 39	17
1986	United States v. Klubock	639 F. Supp. 117	17
2006	Diomed, Inc. v. Vascular Solutions, Inc.	417 F. Supp. 2d 137	16
1993	Rome v. Braunstein (In Re Chestnut Hill Mortgage Corp.)	158 B.R. 547	16
1981	Schmidt v. Boston Housing Authority	505 F. Supp. 988	16
1992	Flaherty v. Baybank Merrimack Valley, N.A.	808 F. Supp. 55	15
1986	Polaroid Corp. v. Eastman Kodak Co.	641 F. Supp. 828	15
1986	Bell v. Streetwise Records, Ltd.	640 F. Supp. 575	15
1988	International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers v. Morse Tool, Inc.	85 B.R. 666	14

Showing the 15 most-cited of 122 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 Rya Weickert Zobel?: President Jimmy Carter appointed Rya Weickert Zobel to the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in 1979.
Was Rya Weickert Zobel appointed by a Democrat or a Republican?: Rya Weickert Zobel was appointed by President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat. JudicialFinder records the appointing president's party, not a judge's own politics.
What was Rya Weickert Zobel's confirmation vote?: Rya Weickert Zobel was confirmed by voice vote on March 21, 1979. No senator-by-senator tally was recorded.
Which court was Rya Weickert Zobel on?: Rya Weickert Zobel 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.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

See something wrong? Report an error. Fixes are logged in the corrections log.

47 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).