Michael Martin Mihm
How Judge Mihm decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
Public-employee First Amendment retaliation is decided at the Garcetti threshold: speech made pursuant to the employee's official duties is unprotected. A school principal who discovered and reported misuse of a fund she was responsible for overseeing spoke as an employee, not a private citizen, so no reasonable jury could find protected speech.
“no reasonable jury could conclude that McArdle was acting as a private citizen when she discovered Davis' alleged criminal activity and reported this activity to District supervisors.”
A False Claims Act complaint survives Rule 12(b)(6)/9(b) when the relators allege the fraudulent scheme with concrete particulars -- named employees, dated internal emails and operations directives, specific sites and dollar amounts -- rather than conclusory fraud. The detailed cross-leveling/over-reservation allegations against the defense contractor were enough.
“KBR's Motion to Dismiss (ECF No. 38) is DENIED.”
Procedural preferences
At summary judgment he repeatedly stresses how favorable the standard is to the non-movant: he must view facts in the light most favorable to the non-movant and may not weigh the evidence, so ambiguous statements and suspicious timing can defeat the motion even when the movant's narrative is plausible.
“Discounting the words on their face, however, would mean the Court was weighing the evidence rather than viewing it in the light most favorable to Plaintiff.”
On an unsettled point of Seventh Circuit law (whether Ortiz v. Werner abolished the direct/indirect-method distinction in employment cases) he took the narrower reading -- siding with Judge Shadid's interpretation that Ortiz is about how to weigh evidence, not a merger of the proof frameworks.
“This Court disagrees with their characterization, as it believes Judge Shadid's interpretation in Davis is correct. Ortiz is about evidence.”
Cautions
A summary-judgment movant cannot win by resting on its own self-serving construction of the underlying complaint's allegations and resolving factual disputes in its favor. He denied two insurers' coverage MSJs precisely because they argued from the pleadings rather than evidence while disputed facts remained.
“Defendants cannot simply rely on the allegations of the underlying complaints as construed by them and resolve all factual disputes in their favor, yet that is precisely what Defendants are asking the Court to do in the present Motions.”
A procedural-due-process claim fails as a matter of law without a constitutionally protected property interest. A non-renewed / at-will employment position (here, a contract validly noticed for non-renewal) carries no such interest, so he grants summary judgment on the due-process count without reaching the process given.
“Even if the Court agreed Plaintiff could only be reassigned for cause while the contract was operative, Plaintiff's reassignment could not have violated his due process rights because the contract was, in fact, not operative. Accordingly, Plaintiff had no property interest to protect.”
The burden of proof stays where it belongs. Ordering the Government to file supplemental briefing in a habeas case does not shift the burden -- a pro se petitioner who offers only unsupported assertions, without record evidence (e.g. a plea transcript), fails to carry it.
“The Court, out of an abundance of caution and to be able to consider Petitioner's claim to the fullest extent, ordered supplemental briefing on the issue from the Government; it did not shift the burden to the Government. The burden of proving his case remained with Petitioner.”
Motion outcomes
Counted from classified signed orders only. Percentages are shown only where the sample is large enough to be meaningful; smaller samples are reported as raw counts.
| Summary judgment N = 5 |
Granted: 2Granted in part: 1Denied: 2 | counts only |
| Motions to dismiss N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Habeas petition N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
A "1 of 1" is one ruling, not a tendency. Treat small samples as illustrative, not predictive.
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“St. Paul's Motion for Summary Judgment [# 139] is DENIED, and Federal's Motion for Summary Judgment [# 148] is DENIED.”
“Davis' Motion for Summary Judgment [# 57] is GRANTED.”
“Individual Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment [# 58] is GRANTED. This case is now terminated.”
“For the reasons set forth below, KBR's Motion to Dismiss (ECF No. 38) is DENIED.”
“Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment (ECF No. 63) is DENIED IN PART and GRANTED IN PART. Summary judgment is denied as to Counts I and II and granted as to Count III.”
“For the reasons set forth above, the Court DENIES Petitioner's Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus under 28 U.S.C. 2241 (ECF No. 1). This matter is now terminated.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median case duration in the sampled dockets: 175 days (N = 19).
Descriptive from search_dockets nature_of_suit/cause fields across the enumerated 2014 cohort and the current 2026 assignment list; not an exhaustive census. No FJC IDB baseline (disposition_mix) loaded this build -- opportunistic idb_data not fetched to conserve calls. OBSERVED (grounded by 'Stipulation of Dismissal' -> dismissal-with-prejudice / 'Settlement Agreement' entries): several litigated civil cases SETTLED after discovery (Barth ERISA dismissed w/prej on joint stipulation; Burnett diversity-tort dismissed; Williams Sec.1983 settled post-MSJ) -- a settle-heavy disposition pattern on the contested docket, NOT quantified into a rate here.