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 and insurance disputes, Ludwig enforces unambiguous text as written and requires a genuine ambiguity before applying interpretive canons such as contra proferentem or ejusdem generis. He also holds sophisticated commercial parties to the terms they accepted.
“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.”
In wage-and-hour cases he applies the lenient Mt. Clemens burden -- when an employer's timekeeping is inaccurate, employees may prove unpaid time by reconstructed memory and 'just and reasonable inference' -- but treats that as a floor, not a license: estimates that amount to guesswork lose at summary judgment. A plaintiff should come prepared with anchored, non-speculative time estimates.
“this standard was designed to be lenient, but it was not an invitation to 'guess or invent working hours post hoc.'”
Where objective video evidence exists, he resolves excessive-force and similar Section 1983 claims on it at summary judgment under Scott v. Harris: a plaintiff's account that the video blatantly contradicts will not create a triable issue. Counsel relying on a narrative the footage does not support should expect to lose on the papers.
“summary judgment was warranted because the objective video evidence defeated Gasser's factual and legal assertions.”
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.”
Ludwig expects developed, non-conclusory evidence and distinguishes sharply between supported factual disputes and claims resting on speculation.
“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.”
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.”
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.
Put Judge Ludwig's record to work
Ezel drafts and answers grounded in this exact profile: how Judge Ludwig actually rules, not a generic AI guess.
Opens in Ezel Pro. Every answer is grounded in Judge Ludwig's own signed orders and cites them.