Jorge L. Alonso
How Judge Alonso decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
He enforces Local Rule 56.1 strictly: a fact supported by admissible evidence and not controverted by admissible evidence (a bare 'this is for the jury' is not enough) is deemed admitted, and he will not hunt the record for facts a party left out of its 56.1 statement. This is the single most outcome-determinative habit in his summary-judgment practice.
“Where one party supports a fact with admissible evidence ... and the other party fails to controvert the fact with citation to admissible evidence ... the Court deems the fact admitted.”
On removal/fraudulent joinder he sets a high bar for the removing defendant: it is not enough to show the plaintiff fails to state a claim against the non-diverse defendant; the defendant must show the claim is 'utterly groundless' so as not to engage federal jurisdiction. Absent that showing, he remands.
“Defendants must show not just that plaintiffs fail to state a claim but also that plaintiffs’ claims are utterly groundless such that they do not engage the jurisdiction of federal courts. Defendants have not attempted to do so.”
Procedural preferences
He resolves jurisdictional/abstention questions before the merits, and applies Younger abstention to dismiss federal due-process challenges that are functionally objections to conditions of confinement already supervised by an ongoing Illinois court proceeding (NGRI/UST treatment plans) -- even when the plaintiff frames the suit as attacking a 'policy' rather than the state-court review.
“Plaintiffs’ claims arise out of conditions of their confinement that are subject to ongoing supervision by an Illinois court under Illinois law. Under the Younger doctrine ... this Court must abstain from hearing such claims.”
He uses Rule 56(g) to lock in the undisputed facts from a partially-granted summary-judgment ruling as 'established for trial' (law of the case), to narrow the issues and streamline trial -- but will not stretch it to facts that were not part of the summary-judgment predicate.
“The undisputed facts set forth on pages three to ten of the ... Memorandum Opinion and Order shall be treated as established for the purposes of the trial.”
Cautions
On premises-liability summary judgment he draws a sharp line on constructive notice: evidence that spills/hazards recur is NOT enough; the plaintiff must show a pattern of dangerous conditions that went unattended for an unreasonable time. A 'pattern of spills' without a 'pattern of inadequate response' loses at summary judgment.
“All plaintiff can show is that rock spills occurred, but what is necessary is evidence that such dangerous conditions were ignored. ... A pattern or practice of a particular type of spill is not necessary. What is needed is a pattern of dangerous conditions which were not attended to within a reasonable period of time.”
On PLRA prisoner suits he enforces administrative exhaustion as a hard, mandatory bar with no futility exception: a prisoner's subjective belief that grievance appeals would be pointless does not excuse failure to appeal to the Regional Director and General Counsel; only the narrow Ross v. Blake unavailability categories excuse exhaustion.
“Plaintiff argues that he believed exhaustion would be futile, but it does not matter. There is no futility exception to § 1997e(a).”
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.
| Motions to dismiss N = 3 |
Granted: 1Granted in part: 1Moot / procedural: 1 | counts only |
| Summary judgment N = 2 |
Granted: 2 | counts only |
| Motions to remand N = 1 |
Granted: 1 | counts only |
| Motion rule 56g N = 1 |
Granted in part: 1 | counts only |
| Motions to stay N = 1 |
Granted in part: 1 | counts only |
| Motions to compel 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.
“For all of these reasons, the Court grants defendant’s motion for summary judgment [42]. Civil case terminated.”
“For all of these reasons, defendants’ motion [26] for summary judgment is granted ... This case is dismissed without prejudice for failure to exhaust.”
“Because the Court grants summary judgment to defendants on their exhaustion affirmative defense, defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiff’s complaint for failure to state a claim is denied as moot.”
“Accordingly, the Court grants plaintiffs’ motions for remand.”
“the defendant City of Chicago’s motion to dismiss ... is granted in part and denied in part ... the City’s motion is granted as to Count IV, which is dismissed. ... the City’s motion to dismiss is denied as to plaintiff’s spoliation claim.”
“The Court grants defendants’ motion to dismiss pursuant to the Younger abstention doctrine ... Plaintiffs’ complaint is dismissed, without prejudice to re-raising their claims before an appropriate Illinois court. Civil case terminated.”
“the Court, in its discretion, grants in part and denies in part Otto’s Rule 56(g) motion [103].”
“the Court grants in part and denies in part Defendant’s motion to stay [50]. The motion to stay discovery is granted. However, finding that there is no benefit to delay the filing of an answer, Defendant is directed to file an answer ...”
“Because the Court finds that a stay is appropriate, Plaintiff’s motion to compel [61] is denied.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median case duration in the sampled dockets: 784 days (N = 3).
Median motion-to-ruling time: 347 days (N = 1).
Active, large, varied caseload. A bare assigned_judge enumeration in mid-2026 surfaced almost entirely NEW 2026 filings: USCIS immigration (Rab v. USCIS), civil rights (Rhodes v. Chicago; Gardner v. Raoul), Social Security (Blanco v. Comm'r), ERISA/benefit-fund collection (Trustees v. Stone and Metal Group), copyright (MJQ/Niepce v. Wang), healthcare (Gray v. Oak Street Health). The 7 GovInfo merits cases span premises liability (Schnepp), prisoner/PLRA (Armour), product-liability removal (J&J), 1983 municipal tort (Jackson), 1983 civil-commitment/Younger (Nadzhafaliyev), ADA employment (Correa/Otto), and BIPA (Fleury). Nature-of-suit is only partially reported in docket case-level metadata.