Philip M. Frazier
How Judge Frazier rules, drawn from 5 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
Judge Frazier no longer sits on this court. This profile is preserved as a historical record of how they ruled here.
About Judge Frazier
Philip M. Frazier served as a United States Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of Illinois from May 1987 until his retirement in March 2014. He continued to serve on recall until September 2016 and earned his law degree from Southern Illinois University.
How Judge Frazier decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In Ford v. Fahim, he recommended denying summary judgment because the defendant's motion attacked a dismissed medication theory rather than the surviving claim about an unfilled rescue inhaler. The district judge adopted the recommendation.
“Fahim addressed the theory of deliberate indifference for discontinuing QVAR, the theory that had been dismissed from the case, but did not address the theory of deliberate indifference for failing to renew Ford’s Albuterol prescription, the only claim actually remaining in the case.”
Procedural preferences
In Hill v. Best, Frazier recommended summary judgment on a prisoner claim for which the grievance did not alert officials to the alleged solicitation and exposure to assault. He recommended allowing a separate legal-mail claim to proceed because Hill could not complete an appeal without the lower-level grievance responses. The district judge adopted the recommendation.
“With respect to Count 2, Magistrate Judge Frazier found that Hill had failed to exhaust his available administrative remedies because his grievance was not sufficient to alert a reasonable person that he was complaining of solicitation and exposure to assaults by other inmates.”
In Moore v. Quinn, he recommended dismissal for failure to prosecute after the plaintiff had not responded to a show-cause order or summary judgment motions. The district judge rejected the recommendation because the plaintiff might not have received those filings after sending a change of address.
“This matter comes before the Court on the Report and Recommendation (‘R & R’) (Doc. 73) of Magistrate Judge Philip M. Frazier recommending this Court dismiss this case pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b) for plaintiff Robert Moore’s failure to prosecute.”
Cautions
In Funches v. Ebbert, Frazier recommended summary judgment for prison library employees on an access-to-courts claim. The record showed at most a negligent miscalculation of a filing deadline, with no evidence that the employees actively misused authority over library access. The district judge adopted the recommendation.
“At most, the evidence would support a finding of careless or negligent conduct. The evidence could not support a finding that either defendant actively misused authority to regulate plaintiffs library access.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“IT IS RECOMMENDED that defendant's motion for summary judgment (Doc. No. 41) be GRANTED in part and declared MOOT in part. At the close of this case, judgment should be entered in favor of both defendants on Count 1.”
“ADOPTS the Report in its entirety (Doc. 55); GRANTS in part and DENIES in part Best's motion for summary judgment (Doc. 34). the motion is GRANTED to the extent it seeks to dismiss Count 2 of the Complaint ... for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. The motion is DENIED in all other respects”
“ADOPTS the Report in its entirety (Doc. 62); OVERRULES Fahim's objections (Doc. 64); and DENIES defendant Magid Fahim's motion for summary judgment (Doc. 40).”
Frazier recommended dismissing the pro se prisoner's case under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b) for failure to prosecute because the plaintiff had not kept a current address on file, ignored a show-cause order, and failed to respond to two summary-judgment motions. District Judge J. Phil Gilbert rejected the recommendation after the plaintiff filed a change of address suggesting he had not received the filings, and instead re-served the motion and set a new response deadline. Because the recommendation was not adopted, it produced no final disposition of a party motion. It illustrates Frazier's willingness to recommend the terminal Rule 41(b) sanction for an apparently abandoned case and the district judge's check on that recommendation.
“After consideration of all the materials submitted by the parties, the Court grants the (Doc. 64) motion for sanctions as follows:”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median case duration in the sampled dockets: 417 days (N = 5).
Frazier's docket combined a large prisoner civil-rights referral stream (reports and recommendations to the district judges, reflected in the published-opinion set) with civil cases he carried to final judgment on the parties' consent under 28 U.S.C. 636(c). The durations below are drawn from five of his consent cases and are a small, selection-biased sample, not a random caseload median.
A historical record
Judge Frazier no longer sits on this court. This profile stays available as a record of how they ruled here. If you're preparing for a matter, start from the court's current bench.