Sabol et al v. Walter Payton College Preparatory High School et al

Filing 15

MEMORANDUM Order Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 12/17/2008:Mailed notice(srn, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS EASTERN DIVISION MARY E. SABOL, et al., etc., Plaintiffs, v. WALTER PAYTON COLLEGE PREPARATORY HIGH SCHOOL, et al., Defendants. ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) )

No.

08 C 5945

MEMORANDUM ORDER This Court has just received two Answers to the First Amended Complaint ("FAC") in this action, one filed on behalf of Ellen Estrada and Dr. Pamela Randall and the other on behalf of the City of Chicago Board of Education ("Board") and Arne Duncan. Each of those Answers has been filed by the same office, that of the Board's General Counsel. Regrettably that office has seen fit to burden plaintiffs' counsel and this Court with separate documents aggregating 63 pages. But a moment's thought would have caused counsel to

realize that such duplication is not only unnecessary but also inconsiderate. In the federal system of notice pleading

(applicable to defendants and plaintiffs alike), one important aspect of a multidefendant case is the need for the adversary and the court to determine readily all of the areas in which defendants have common cause as well as those on which their responses differ (and why). To compel the reader to wade through

two full sets of paragraphs in response to the 92-paragraph FAC,

when that process requires a page-by-page, back-and-forth examination of a 29-page response and a separate 34-page response, is a thankless as well as unnecessary task. Accordingly both current Answers are stricken. This is of

course without prejudice to the filing of a single Amended Answer on behalf of the four defendants, which must be tendered on or before December 31.

________________________________________ Milton I. Shadur Senior United States District Judge Date: December 17, 2008

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