Brett Harry Ludwig
How Judge Ludwig decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
On summary judgment in employment cases, applies the Seventh Circuit's Ortiz v. Werner 'whole record' causation test: the dispositive question is simply whether the evidence would let a reasonable factfinder conclude the protected trait caused the adverse action. Grants defense MSJ where the plaintiff has only stray remarks and no replacement-age/comparator evidence.
“Because no reasonable jury could find in Pobiecke's favor, the motion will be granted.”
In contract/insurance disputes he enforces unambiguous text as written and is openly hostile to interpretive canons deployed to manufacture ambiguity: a party urging contra proferentem or ejusdem generis must first establish genuine ambiguity in the policy read as a whole. He also holds sophisticated commercial parties to having read their own contracts and will not rewrite an agreed-upon term.
“But these Latin phrases [contra proferentem and ejusdem generis] are not magical incantations. They do not transform plain and unambiguous policy language ... into words that create coverage where none exists.”
Procedural preferences
Will decline to resolve threshold jurisdictional disputes piecemeal where time is short and the merits can be reached: in Trump v. WEC he gave the plaintiff an expedited evidentiary hearing on the merits rather than ruling first on the defendants' jurisdictional challenges, then issued combined Rule 52 findings.
“With the Electoral College meeting just days away, the Court declined to address the issues in piecemeal fashion and instead provided plaintiff with an expedited hearing on the merits of his claims.”
Treats arguments raised only in briefing but not in the complaint, or reserved-but-undeveloped claims, as abandoned/waived (Puffer v. Allstate).
“While counsel purported to reserve the Equal Protection claim, the complaint offers no clue of a coherent Equal Protection theory and plaintiff offered neither evidence nor argument to support such a claim at trial. It is therefore abandoned.”
Cautions
Reads Wisconsin's public-policy exception to at-will employment narrowly: a wrongful-termination plaintiff must allege the employer asked or required her to violate a fundamental, well-defined public policy -- merely being fired after speaking about a policy-implicating issue is not enough.
“Pobiecke does not allege that the County ever required her to violate the policy she cites; she alleges only that the County terminated her for speaking to a third party about an issue that she felt might implicate a public policy.”
Writing style is notably vivid and pointed; he frames thin claims with rhetorical bite, which a practitioner should read as a signal he expects developed, non-conclusory evidence.
“This theory stumbles out of the starting gate; an employee forbidden from checking Brewers scores while on the job has not suffered an adverse employment action within the meaning of Title VII.”
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: 2Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Motions to dismiss N = 2 |
Granted: 2 | counts only |
| Preliminary injunction N = 1 |
Moot / procedural: 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.
“the Court now further concludes that plaintiff has not proved that defendants violated his rights under the Electors Clause. To the contrary, the record shows Wisconsin's Presidential Electors are being determined in the very manner directed by the Legislature, as required by Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution. Plaintiff's complaint is therefore dismissed with prejudice.”
“Plaintiffs motion for preliminary injunction 6 is DENIED as moot. Defendants motions to dismiss 69, 71, 78, 84, 86, 96, 97, and 99, are GRANTED.”
“defendants' motion to dismiss, (ECF No. 9), is GRANTED and that Counts III, IV, and V of plaintiff's complaint are DISMISSED. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that plaintiff may file an amended complaint on or before April 21, 2021.”
“IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendants' motion for summary judgment 38 is GRANTED, and the case is dismissed.”
“IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendants' motion for summary judgment, ECF No. 34, is GRANTED. ... Hammond's Third Amended Complaint, ECF No. 25, is dismissed.”
“Hammond's motion for partial summary judgment, ECF No. 45, is DENIED.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Median case duration in the sampled dockets: 181.0 days (N = 30).
Median motion-to-ruling time: 56 days (N = 5).
Descriptive from search_dockets nature_of_suit/cause fields across the enumerated cohorts; not an exhaustive census.