Suzanne Barnard Conlon
How Judge Conlon decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
On Illinois Trade Secrets Act preemption she does not preempt wholesale; she dissects each tort claim and preempts only the part that rests on misappropriation of secret information, letting claims with an independent basis survive. Conversion of a tangible item with intrinsic value (the MCOT kits) survives; conversion of the information inside them is preempted. Interference with a contract survives because the tort depends on the contract, not on a secret.
“CardioNet's conversion claim with respect to the MCOT kits is not preempted. ... The MCOT kits have intrinsic value apart from the information it contains.”
She enforces Rule 9(b) fraud-pleading particularity rigorously: a complaint that lumps multiple defendants together and omits the dollar amounts and dates of the alleged misrepresentations will have its fraud-based counts dismissed (here without prejudice), even in a sprawling multi-defendant financial-fraud case.
“Fidelity has not satisfied 9(b)'s requirements for Counts I, III, V, and IX. The complaint repeatedly lumps defendants together in its fraud allegations. ... dollar amounts and relevant dates are not specified.”
Procedural preferences
Local Rule 56.1 compliance is mandatory in her courtroom. She will disregard a party's summary-judgment fact response that pastes large chunks of deposition testimony, argues rather than cites, or offers general/evasive denials, and will treat the movant's properly supported, unrebutted facts as admitted. Pro se litigants get the required Rule 56.2 notice but are still held to the rule once warned.
“In violation of the rule, Job repeatedly argues about and pastes large chunks of deposition testimony into her response to defendants' statement of material facts. ... The court considers Job's submissions only to the extent they comply with Rule 56.1's requirements.”
Cautions
PLRA exhaustion is enforced strictly against prisoner plaintiffs. A 'lost grievance' excuse will not save an experienced grievance-filer who waited many months and never appealed; failing to give the institution a fair opportunity to address the claim defeats the suit on exhaustion grounds regardless of the merits.
“the court cannot conclude that he 'had done all that he could do' to exhaust his administrative remedies ... Plaintiff did not give the Cook County Jail 'a fair and full opportunity to adjudicate [his] claims.'”
In employment cases she demands a materially adverse employment action and real evidence of pretext. Lateral transfers, paid administrative leave, 'acceptable' performance evaluations, denied overtime without lost pay, and stray derogatory remarks spread over a couple of years generally will not survive summary judgment; the court will not second-guess legitimate personnel decisions as a 'super-personnel department.'
“a poor performance evaluation unaccompanied by a tangible job consequence is not an adverse employment action.”
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 = 3 |
Granted: 2Granted in part: 1 | counts only |
| Motions to dismiss N = 2 |
Granted in part: 2 | 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 the foregoing reasons, defendants' motion to dismiss is granted in part. Count VII is dismissed in its entirety. Counts II and III are dismissed to the extent they allege defendants converted and fraudulently misappropriated information contained in the MCOT kits.”
“The motions to dismiss [36-1], [33-2], [26-1], [25-1], [24-1], [17-1] are granted in part and denied in part. Counts I, III, V, and IX are dismissed without prejudice. The motions are denied in all other respects.”
“Del Re's summary judgment motion is granted on Count II with respect to Perez-Garcia's incarceration from November 9, 2003 to the afternoon of December 1, 2003, when the Lake County Circuit Court ordered his release. The motion is denied as to his incarceration following the court release order until 2:00 p.m. on December 2, 2003, when he was actually released.”
“Defendants are entitled to summary judgment in their favor on the national origin discrimination and retaliation claims because Job fails to present a genuine issue of material fact that she was subjected to an adverse employment action, was treated less favorably than similarly situated employees, or that the reasons for defendants' decisions are pretextual.”
“For the reasons stated above, the Defendant's motion for summary judgment is granted.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median case duration in the sampled dockets: 51.0 days (N = 9).
Sampled across 2007-2012 filings (her senior-status years). A large share of her docket docket is same-day administrative terminations (SEC enforcement matters such as SEC v. Nadel and SEC v. Creative Capital, foreign/sister-court and arbitration petitions, 'In Re' miscellaneous filings). The genuinely litigated civil cases in the sample span employment/civil-rights (Adams v. Stitch It, NOS 440), immigration mandamus (Mohamud v. Dorochoff, NOS 890), insurance/transportation (American Casualty v. Schilli; Kawasaki Kisen v. All City Used Auto Parts), contract (Yates; JP Morgan Chase v. IDW Group), and personal-liability (Rivera v. U.S. Security Associates).