Jeffrey Irvine Cummings
How Judge Cummings rules, drawn from 26 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
About Judge Cummings
Jeffrey Irvine Cummings is a judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Appointed by President Joseph R. Biden, Judge Cummings received a commission on October 10, 2023.
Judge Cummings's practices and standing orders
Rules for cases before Judge Cummings, as published on the court's website (checked October 8, 2026). Judges revise these often, so confirm the current version on the court's site before you file.
- Case Procedures ↗
- standing order for settlement conference ↗
- Standing Order for Preparation of Pretrial Materials ↗
Key rules
Contacting chambers
Provide telephone hearing dialing instructions to the courtroom deputy at least 48 hours ahead.
“Counsel shall contact the Court's Courtroom Deputy at least 48 hours before the scheduled hearing with dialing instructions.”
Motions
After amendment in response to a motion to dismiss, answer or renew the motion within 21 days unless ordered otherwise.
“If the nonmoving party elects to amend its pleading in response to the motion to dismiss, then the moving party (unless otherwise ordered) must, within 21 days of the amended pleading, file either an answer or a renewed motion to dismiss.”
Motions
Use the court’s template for the initial joint status report.
“The report shall contain the information requested in the template for Initial Joint Status Report for Newly Filed Cases, available HERE.”
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 8, 2026).
How Judge Cummings decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In a Social Security appeal involving a closed benefits period, he remanded because the administrative law judge's finding of medical improvement lacked substantial evidence.
“The Court agrees that the ALJ's finding of medical improvement is not supported by substantial evidence and that this error requires remand.”
On FDCPA statutory damages he sided with the (minority) view that a defendant's policies and procedures are admissible to show intent and the nature of the noncompliance, reasoning it better serves the Congressional purpose of statutory damages (creating an incentive to obey the law) even though the cited caselaw majority view was to the contrary.
“Although the caselaw cited by defendants appears to represent the majority view of the courts that have considered this issue, the caselaw cited by plaintiff appears to better align with the Congressional purpose underlying statutory damages (namely, to ‘create an incentive to obey the law,’ Strange, 796 F.Supp. at 1120) by allowing consideration of evidence of a defendant’s policies and procedures where they arguably led to the FDCPA violation.”
In the Sprout Social securities class action, Cummings found the alleged corrective disclosures plausibly revealed prior false statements and caused stock-price declines. He denied the defendants’ dismissal motion.
“In short, each of the alleged corrective disclosures plausibly: (1) corrected a previous false statement and (2) caused the price of Sprout’s shares to decline.”
Procedural preferences
In Portillo v. Nebula Genomics, Cummings granted Google’s Rule 12(b)(2) motion after finding that the record showed neither general nor specific personal jurisdiction over Google in Illinois. He denied the rest of Google’s dismissal motion as moot.
“Accordingly, the Court finds on this record that it has neither general nor specific jurisdiction over Google, and it therefore grants Google’s motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(2) for lack of personal jurisdiction.”
In O’Connor v. Ford Motor Co., Cummings treated challenges to missing data and comparator choices in a warranty expert’s analysis as going to data quality rather than methodological reliability. He granted each side’s exclusion motion in part and denied it in part.
“plaintiffs’ attack on the exclusion of Raptors or any missing data in Soderborg’s Opinion No. 2 analysis goes to the quality of Soderborg’s data rather than the reliability of his methodology.”
Cautions
In Mark H. v. Kijakazi, Cummings denied the claimant’s summary judgment motion after finding the arguments largely undeveloped and therefore waived.
“Claimant's arguments are largely undeveloped and, accordingly, are waived.”
In one civil-rights dismissal, the court treated a plaintiff’s failure to answer an argument in the dismissal brief as abandonment of that claim.
“Shannon does not respond to defendants’ argument in his brief, which amounts to his abandonment of this claim.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“For the foregoing reasons, Claimant's motion to reverse the Commissioner's decision to deny him DIBs, (Dckt. #15), is granted and the Commissioner's motion for summary judgment, (Dckt. #21), is denied.”
“For the foregoing reasons, Claimant's motion for summary remand (Dckt. #20) is granted and the Commissioner's motion for summary judgment is denied (Dckt. #27, 28).”
“For the foregoing reasons, Claimant's motion for summary judgment (Dckt. #17), is granted and the Commissioner's request to affirm the decision, (Dckt. #23), is denied.”
“For the foregoing reason, Claimant's motion for summary remand (Dckt. #18) is granted and the Commissioner's motion for summary judgment (Dckt. #26) is denied.”
“Claimant's motion to reverse the Commissioner's decision to deny her SSI benefits (Dckt. #20) is granted and the Commissioner's motion for summary judgment (Dckt. #21) is denied.”
“For the foregoing reasons, Claimant's motion to reverse the decision of the Commissioner, (Dckt. #17), is denied and the Commissioner's motion for summary judgment, (Dckt. # 20), is granted. The decision of the ALJ is affirmed.”
“For the reasons that follow, Claimant's motion for summary judgment, (Dckt. #14), is denied.”
“the Court holds that evidence of defendants' policies and procedures is relevant and admissible to the determination of the amount of statutory damages that the jury may award to plaintiff pursuant to 15 U.S.C. §1692k(b)(1).”
“The Court grants in part the motion to compel arbitration.”
“Meta Platform, Inc.'s motion to dismiss, (Dckt. #45), and defendant Microsoft Corporation's motion to dismiss, (Dckt. #48), are granted and plaintiff's unjust enrichment claims against them are dismissed without prejudice to the refiling of the claims in the District of Massachusetts.”
“the portion of defendant Google LLC's motion to dismiss, (Dckt. #51), premised on Rule 12(b)(2) for lack of personal jurisdiction is granted and the remainder of the motion is denied as moot.”
“Nebula Genomics, Inc.'s motion to transfer, or in the alternative, to dismiss, (Dckt. #54), is granted as to the motion to transfer, and denied as to the request to dismiss on grounds of mootness.”
“For the reasons stated above, defendants’ motion for summary judgment, (Dckt. #70), is granted and plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment, (Dckt. #73), is denied.”
“For the foregoing reasons, Ford’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, (Dckt. #432), is denied.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median case duration in the sampled dockets: 112 days (N = 19).
- His enumerable docket is his October-2023-onward district-judge assignments.
- The 2024 sample shows a typical N.D.
- Ill. Eastern-Division (Chicago) civil mix plus a criminal calendar.
- A notable cluster: numerous CDK Global cases (the In re CDK Global Data Security Consumer Litigation group) were assigned to him and terminated together on consolidation.
- Many short-duration terminations are state-court removals later remanded or settled, voluntary dismissals, or Schedule A trademark and copyright enforcement actions.
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 | 21 |
| Bench trials submitted more than six months | 0 |
| Bankruptcy appeals pending more than six months | 1 |
| Social Security appeals pending more than six months | 0 |
| Civil cases pending more than three years | 31 |
| Report | Motions over six months | Cases over three years |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 2026 | 21 | 31 |
| Sep 2025 | 35 | 49 |
| Mar 2025 | 41 | 50 |
| Sep 2024 | 73 | 49 |
| Mar 2024 | 0 | 43 |
| Sep 2023 | 0 | 2 |
| Mar 2023 | 0 | 3 |
| Sep 2022 | 0 | 5 |
| Mar 2022 | 0 | 1 |
| Sep 2021 | 0 | 1 |
| Mar 2021 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2020 | 1 | 2 |
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 Northern District of Illinois, not for Judge Cummings: 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 | 12,205 | 5.9 months |
| Closed with no court action | 4,300 | 7 months |
| Closed before pretrial | 7,558 | 5.4 months |
| Closed during or after pretrial | 305 | 12.6 months |
| Closed during trial | 42 | 49.5 months |
| 12 months ending | Cases closed | Median time |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | 12,205 | 5.9 months |
| Sep 2024 | 9,700 | 6.8 months |
| Sep 2023 | 7,093 | 6 months |
| Sep 2022 | 6,841 | 7.3 months |
| Sep 2021 | 9,703 | 15.1 months |
| Sep 2020 | 8,046 | 10.6 months |
| Sep 2019 | 8,134 | 7.4 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).
Draft for Judge Cummings with the record in hand
Ezel grounds your drafting and research in this profile: what has persuaded Judge Cummings, and what has not, cited to the signed orders.
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