Brett Harry Ludwig
How Judge Ludwig rules, drawn from 15 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
About Judge Ludwig
Brett Harry Ludwig is a judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. Appointed by President Donald J. Trump, Judge Ludwig received a commission on September 10, 2020.
Judge Ludwig's practices and standing orders
Rules for cases before Judge Ludwig, as published on the court's website (checked October 9, 2026). Judges revise these often, so confirm the current version on the court's site before you file.
- Judge Ludwig’s General Procedures ↗
- Judge Ludwig's Form Civil Scheduling Order ↗
- Judge Ludwig's Form Civil Scheduling Order FLSA and Rule 23 Class Action Cases ↗
Key rules
Filing
File proposed orders in PDF as attachments to motions or stipulations and separately email a Word version to chambers.
“Proposed orders should be submitted in two ways and two formats. First, consistent with the District’s ECF procedures, proposed orders should be e-filed in PDF format as an attachment to the motion or stipulation seeking relief. Second, parties should email proposed orders in Word (not PDF) format to the Court’s proposed order email address. [email protected]”
Motions
Seek changes to scheduling-order deadlines by motion and describe efforts to obtain the other parties’ consent.
“Requests for changes to any deadlines set in a scheduling order should be made by motion. In addition to the grounds for relief, the motion should describe with specificity efforts made to obtain opposing parties’ consent, including whether such consent has been obtained.”
Conferences
If the hearing notice does not allow remote appearances, move under Civil Local Rule 7(h) in advance and explain the need.
“If a party wishes to appear, and the hearing notice does not specifically permit remote appearances, the party should file a motion under Civil L. R. 7(h) in advance of the hearing explaining the need for the remote appearance.”
Conferences
File the proposed discovery plan at least seven days before the civil scheduling conference.
“A report outlining the parties’ discovery plan must be filed no later than 7 days before the scheduling conference. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(f)(2).”
Trial
The sample civil scheduling order sets motions in limine 14 days before the final pretrial conference and responses seven days before it.
“Motions in limine shall be filed at least 14 days prior to the final pretrial conference; responses shall be filed at least 7 days prior to the final pretrial conference.”
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 9, 2026).
How Judge Ludwig decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In Pobiecke v. Washington County, Ludwig granted summary judgment for the employer on the remaining age- and sex-discrimination claims. He found the record did not permit a reasonable jury to connect the plaintiff's termination to either protected trait.
“Because no reasonable jury could find in Pobiecke's favor, the motion will be granted.”
In Hammond Power Solutions v. National Union, Ludwig granted the insurers summary judgment after finding the policy exclusion unambiguous; he held that contra proferentem and ejusdem generis could not create coverage from that text.
“But these Latin phrases are not magical incantations. They do not transform plain and unambiguous policy language, like that used in the exclusion at issue, into words that create coverage where none exists.”
In Mazurek v. Metalcraft of Mayville, Ludwig granted summary judgment for the employer in four wage-and-hour cases after finding the workers' reconstructed estimates of unpaid time too unreliable. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, explaining that the lenient evidentiary standard did not permit workers to guess or invent hours after the fact.
“this standard was designed to be lenient, but it was not an invitation to 'guess or invent working hours post hoc.'”
In Gasser v. Village of Pleasant Prairie, Ludwig granted summary judgment for the defendants in an excessive-force suit. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, concluding that video evidence defeated the plaintiff's factual and legal assertions.
“summary judgment was warranted because the objective video evidence defeated Gasser's factual and legal assertions.”
Procedural preferences
In Trump v. The Wisconsin Elections Commission, with the Electoral College meeting days away, he held an expedited evidentiary hearing on the merits instead of resolving the defendants' jurisdictional objections separately.
“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.”
In Trump v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, Ludwig treated an Equal Protection claim as abandoned after the plaintiff offered no evidence or argument for it at trial and the complaint supplied no coherent theory.
“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.”
In Washington-Cunningham, the plaintiffs did not respond to two dismissal motions. The court treated that omission as sufficient to grant them, then independently addressed the legal grounds for dismissal.
“Plaintiffs’ failure to respond to the motions is sufficient to warrant granting them.”
In the reviewed discrimination pleading dispute, he treated an undeveloped challenge to a retaliation claim as waived even though the defendant challenged the separate discrimination claim in detail.
“Having failed to explain why Feliciano’s retaliation claim is insufficiently pleaded, True AV has waived any challenge to this claim.”
In Robinson’s prisoner case, Ludwig denied a late motion to add claims after discovery closed and summary judgment motions were pending because the plaintiff gave no good cause for the delay.
“Robinson has not provided any cause, let alone good cause, to introduce new claims against new defendants at this late stage,”
Cautions
In Pobiecke v. Washington County, he dismissed a Wisconsin wrongful-termination claim after finding that the complaint alleged firing for discussing a policy-related issue, but did not allege that the employer required the plaintiff to violate the public policy she cited.
“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.”
In Pobiecke v. Washington County, Ludwig held that a restriction on checking baseball scores at work was not an adverse employment action under Title VII.
“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.”
In Winters’s civil rights case, Ludwig denied recusal after finding that the plaintiff relied on adverse rulings and references to her related cases, with no evidence of a disqualifying conflict.
“Adverse rulings standing alone are not evidence of bias,”
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.”
“The district court properly denied Bertaud's motion for summary judgment and affirmed the Commissioner's decision.”
“The district court granted summary judgment to Metalcraft in all four of the selected cases.”
“the fact that the evidence was not enough to win on summary judgment, the court noted, did not retroactively make the cases frivolous enough to merit sanctions, which would be 'overkill.'”
“The district court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment on all counts.”
“claim (Dkt. No. 28) is GRANTED. Sutton’s First Amendment claim is DISMISSED without prejudice based on his failure to exhaust the available administrative remedies.”
“Goldfarb’s Motion to Dismiss, ECF No. 9, is GRANTED, and all claims against those defendants are DISMISSED for failure to state a claim.”
“No. 14, is GRANTED, and all claims against OpCapita are DISMISSED for lack of personal jurisdiction and for failure to state a claim.”
“IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendant True AV Solutions, LLC’s Motion to Dismiss, ECF No. 6, is DENIED.”
“IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Defendants’ motion to stay proceedings (Dkt. No. 17) is GRANTED pending resolution of the state court proceedings for Milwaukee County Case No. 2024CF0505.”
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).
The reviewed docket slices span civil rights, employment, insurance, wage-and-hour, Social Security, election, and commercial disputes. They are descriptive examples rather than a complete caseload census.
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 | 2 |
| Bench trials submitted more than six months | 0 |
| Bankruptcy appeals pending more than six months | 0 |
| Social Security appeals pending more than six months | 1 |
| Civil cases pending more than three years | 3 |
| Report | Motions over six months | Cases over three years |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 2026 | 2 | 3 |
| Sep 2025 | 7 | 2 |
| Mar 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2024 | 15 | 2 |
| Mar 2024 | 3 | 1 |
| Sep 2023 | 13 | 5 |
| Mar 2023 | 3 | 11 |
| Sep 2022 | 5 | 12 |
| Mar 2022 | 16 | 21 |
| Sep 2021 | 41 | 33 |
| Mar 2021 | 80 | 34 |
| Sep 2020 | 0 | 31 |
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 Eastern District of Wisconsin, not for Judge Ludwig: 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 | 1,062 | 6 months |
| Closed with no court action | 137 | 3 months |
| Closed before pretrial | 879 | 6.2 months |
| Closed during or after pretrial | 36 | 13.1 months |
| Closed during trial | 10 | 22.6 months |
| 12 months ending | Cases closed | Median time |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | 1,062 | 6 months |
| Sep 2024 | 982 | 6.4 months |
| Sep 2023 | 1,028 | 8 months |
| Sep 2022 | 1,065 | 9.5 months |
| Sep 2021 | 1,134 | 9.4 months |
| Sep 2020 | 1,184 | 7.1 months |
| Sep 2019 | 1,253 | 6.9 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 Ludwig with the record in hand
Ezel grounds your drafting and research in this profile: what has persuaded Judge Ludwig, and what has not, cited to the signed orders.
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