Michael Martin Mihm
How Judge Mihm rules, drawn from 24 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
About Judge Mihm
Michael Martin Mihm is a judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois. Appointed by President Ronald Reagan, Judge Mihm received a commission on August 6, 1982. Judge Mihm assumed senior status on October 1, 2009.
Judge Mihm's practices and standing orders
The court's website lists no individual practices or standing orders of Judge Mihm's own (checked October 9, 2026), so the court's local rules and general orders are the place to look (court page ↗).
Standing orders for every case in this court
Orders the court applies to all of its cases, whichever judge has them, as published on the court's website (checked October 9, 2026).
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.”
In a Bradley University tuition-refund suit, Mihm denied dismissal of a student’s contract claim after finding that the course catalog and other materials plausibly supported an implied promise of in-person classes and campus services for spring 2020.
“The Court finds that Plaintiff has alleged sufficient facts at this early stage to adequately allege a claim for breach of contract.”
Procedural preferences
He follows controlling circuit precedent unless there is near certainty the higher court would repudiate it, leaving reconsideration of an older constitutional holding to the appellate court rather than predicting its abandonment.
“the law requires that the Court follow precedent unless it is ‘almost certain that the higher court would repudiate the doctrine if given the chance to do so.’”
In Chumbley v. Board of Education, Mihm declined to discount the superintendent’s remarks at summary judgment because doing so would weigh disputed evidence against the plaintiff. He let the FMLA claims proceed while granting judgment on the due process claim.
“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.”
In Eddlemon v. Bradley University, Mihm allowed an unjust-enrichment claim to proceed alongside a breach-of-contract claim because the alleged contract’s existence and terms remained disputed at the pleading stage.
“Especially since the existence of the underlying contract is in dispute, it would be premature for the Court to dismiss Plaintiff's unjust enrichment claim pled in the alternative to her breach of contract claim.”
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.”
In Chumbley v. Board of Education, Mihm granted summary judgment on the plaintiff’s procedural-due-process count because his employment contract was no longer operative and he had no protected property interest in the position.
“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.”
A cat's-paw retaliation theory needs evidence that the subordinate actually harbored discriminatory animus and that the subordinate's scheme proximately caused the decisionmaker's action; suspicion and unflattering remarks are not enough.
“The record fails to demonstrate that Dean Radson influenced Provost Zakahi, the decisionmaker, to remove Plaintiff as chair.”
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.”
“Because it is within this Court's broad statutorily prescribed purview to do so, the Court hereby GRANTS the Government's Motion for Appointment of Receiver [# 145].”
“Accordingly, the Court GRANTS summary judgment in favor of the Defendant on Counts IV and V.... Ford's Motion is DENIED insofar as it relies on Sec. 5/2-604.1.”
“For the reasons set forth below, the Motion to Dismiss is DENIED [# 64].”
“Plaintiff's Motion [# 8] is GRANTED and [# 10] Defendant's Motion [# 10] is DENIED.”
“Oak Leaf's Motion to Dismiss/Strike Defendant's Motion for Preliminary Injunction Based on Court's Lack of Authority [# 31] is GRANTED.”
“This Court GRANTS State Farm's Motion... the Court GRANTS State Farm's Motion to Dismiss [# 9].”
“The Court DENIES Johnson's Motion to Reconsider [# 27 and # 28].”
“For the reasons set forth below, the Motion to Remand [# 8] is DENIED and the Motion to Stay [# 12] is GRANTED.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median case duration in the sampled dockets: 175 days (N = 19).
Median motion-to-ruling time: 105 days (N = 16).
The 2014 case cohort and current assignment list are descriptive rather than an exhaustive census. Several litigated civil cases settled after discovery, but the contested-case sample is too small and targeted to support a settlement rate. No administrative case-disposition baseline is available.
Pending matters in the official report
Reported by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts under the Civil Justice Reform Act, as of March 31, 2026.
| Motions pending more than six months | 0 |
| Bench trials submitted more than six months | 0 |
| Bankruptcy appeals pending more than six months | 0 |
| Social Security appeals pending more than six months | 0 |
| Civil cases pending more than three years | 6 |
| Report | Motions over six months | Cases over three years |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 2026 | 0 | 6 |
| Sep 2025 | 0 | 8 |
| Mar 2025 | 0 | 5 |
| Sep 2024 | 2 | 3 |
| Mar 2024 | 2 | 6 |
| Sep 2023 | 0 | 8 |
| Mar 2023 | 0 | 11 |
| Sep 2022 | 0 | 9 |
| Mar 2022 | 1 | 5 |
| Sep 2021 | 1 | 2 |
| Mar 2021 | 0 | 4 |
| Sep 2020 | 0 | 3 |
A snapshot on that date: matters listed may since have been decided or reassigned. A motion referred to a magistrate judge is counted for both judges. Motions in multidistrict litigation, section 2255 cases and Social Security appeals are not counted, and a very large three-year count is generally a multidistrict docket. Source: Appendix A of the report (PDF); about the report.
How long civil cases take in this court
For the whole of U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois, not for Judge Mihm: median time from filing to disposition of the civil cases the court closed in the 12 months ending September 30, 2025, as reported by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
| Cases | Median time | |
|---|---|---|
| All civil cases closed | 760 | 7.3 months |
| Closed with no court action | 315 | 6.2 months |
| Closed before pretrial | 438 | 8.4 months |
| Closed during trial | 7 | not reported |
| 12 months ending | Cases closed | Median time |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | 760 | 7.3 months |
| Sep 2024 | 704 | 8 months |
| Sep 2023 | 625 | 10.8 months |
| Sep 2022 | 637 | 11.7 months |
| Sep 2021 | 684 | 9.9 months |
| Sep 2020 | 629 | 10.4 months |
| Sep 2019 | 653 | 10.1 months |
The table leaves out prisoner petitions, land condemnations, deportation reviews, recovery of overpayments and enforcement of judgments, and reports no median for fewer than 10 cases. A district that closed a large multidistrict litigation in the period shows very large counts and long medians for that year. Source: Table C-5, U.S. District Courts (spreadsheet).
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