Philos Technologies, Inc. v. Philos & D Inc. et al

Filing 105

MEMORANDUM Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 8/15/2012:Mailed notice(srn, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
PHILOS TECHNOLOGIES, INC.,
Plaintiff,
v.
PHILOS & D, INC., et al.,
Defendants.

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No. 08 C 7240

MEMORANDUM
As the parties are well aware, this Court inherited this action by reassignment following
the March 19, 2012 death of its colleague Honorable William Hibbler. At that time there were
two pending motions that had been brought by defendants -- one to vacate an earlier-entered
default judgment and the other to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.
As it always seeks to do in cases on its own calendar, this Court promptly reviewed the
then-pending motion papers and issued a May 22, 2012 memorandum opinion and order that
carefully walked its way through the pending issues, determined that "an evidentiary hearing is
necessary to decide whether this District Court may exercise personal jurisdiction over the
defendants" and ordered finally:
Within two weeks of the date of this order, each party should submit a list of
possible dates for the hearing.
Now this Court (1) has reviewed a printout of potentially reportable matters under the
Criminal Justice Reform Act (the "Act," 28 U.S.C. §476(a)),1 (2) has seen that the two motions in
this case are on that list and (3) has been advised by its staff that the parties could not reach
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sponsor.

That statute is often referred to as the "Biden Bill" -- then Senator Biden was its lead

accord on a date for the evidentiary hearing until September 19, 2012. To put it bluntly, that is
totally unacceptable.
Under the Act Congress has decreed that each March 31 and September 30 every federal
judge must report publicly on a number of matters that have been pending for certain periods -and importantly, those include undisposed-of motions that have been "pending" for six months or
more as of the reporting date.2 And a motion is treated as having been filed and therefore as
"pending" as of a date 30 days after the initial papers on the motion have actually been filed -- in
the case of a September 30 report, that means the filing date must have been before March 1 of
the same year.3
This Court has been at this job for more than three decades, during which it has prided
itself on never having had a reportable event either under the Act or under its more demanding
predecessor that involved reports to the Administrative Office of the United States Courts rather
than publicly available reports. It does not propose to -- and it will not -- subject itself to a
situation that involves a September 19, 2012 hearing date, followed by the intensive work
required to generate a ruling by September 30 (indeed, even such an intolerable time squeeze
would take no account of counsel's inevitable -- and understandable -- desire for post-hearing

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There are several respects in which the approach taken by the Act's formulation is
flawed from the standpoint of the assigned judge -- most serious among them is the one
exemplified here, in which no consideration whatever is given in the six-month calculation for
delays caused by the litigants rather than by the judge. In that situation the passage of time
scarcely betokens a judicial officer who is not a figurative shoemaker tending to his or her last.
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On the printout of prospective reportable items under the Act, the two motions
pending in this case show a "filing" date (under the statutory formulation) of October 31 , 2011.
So the initial filing on the motions had already been in the hopper (for almost a year and a half
before the case was reassigned to this Court's calendar).
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submissions).
If this Court is expected to retain the case for decision, the parties must make
arrangements for the evidentiary hearing (perhaps including videotaped depositions if necessary)
to be conducted not later than the first week in September. This Court awaits a prompt response
from the litigants.

__________________________________________
Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge
Date: August 15, 2012

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