Green et al v. Scurto Cement Construction et al

Filing 41

MEMORANDUM Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 5/26/2011:Mailed notice(srn, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
RONALD GREEN SR., et al.,

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Plaintiffs,
v.
SCURTO CEMENT CONST. LTD.,
et al.,
Defendants.

No.

10 C 4562

MEMORANDUM
When Union Local 11, Area 161 (“Union”) filed its
February 11, 2011 motion for the with-prejudice dismissal of this
action brought against it and Scurto Cement Construction Ltd.
(“Scurto”) by Ronald Green, Sr. and Donald Green, Sr.
(collectively “Greens”), this Court eschewed its normal practice
of ordering a response because the parties represented that they
were going to seek settlement.

That representation caused this

Court to refer the case to Magistrate Judge Susan Cox to assist
in those settlement efforts, and she has set the matter for as
early a date as is feasible in terms of her schedule and that of
the litigants--a date in mid-August.
This Court sees no difficulty, of course, with that
reasonable timing of the settlement conference as such--but in
terms of this Court’s consistent handling of motions shown as
pending on its calendar, it poses a special problem.

Because of

the motion’s early filing date, any failure on the part of this
Court to have resolved it before September 30, 2011 would make it

a reportable event on the part of this Court.1

This Court has

never, during the past three decades and more, had to report that
a motion has been pending for the period prescribed by the Biden
Bill or, before that, by the Administrative Office.
That unbroken record reflects this Court’s view of the case
management responsibility that any federal judge owes to the
parties in cases on his or her calendar, and as such the
maintenance of that record is a matter of some pride as well.
This Court does not propose to break that string now, and that
would be the inevitable result if settlement discussions were to
prove unsuccessful, so that a responsive memorandum by Greens’
counsel had to be ordered in mid to late August.
Two alternatives appear available.

One is to require Greens

to respond to the pending motion with reasonable promptness, so
that this Court can deal with it on the merits.

And the other is

for Union to withdraw its motion for the present--without
prejudice, of course.

In the latter respect, this Court has

always been critical of any judge’s strong-arming the withdrawal

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Under the formulation established by what was known as
the “Biden Bill,” which commendably converted the reportability
of pending matters on a judge’s calendar to a requirement of
public disclosure, any motion on which the initial submission has
been made more than 30 days before March 31 or September 30,
respectively, becomes reportable if not resolved by the ensuing
September 30 or March 31. That system has an obvious flaw as a
measure intended to identify any judicial slothfulness in the
handling of contested matters: It essentially penalizes the
judge for any lawyer-created delays that reduce the time actually
available for decisionmaking.
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of a pending motion shortly before the March 31 or September 30
reporting date, so as to give the judge’s Biden Bill report a
better look--that strikes this Court as an impermissible type of
game playing.

This however, is a totally different situation.

This Court looks forward to a swift response from the litigants
as between those suggested alternatives (or as to any other
reasonable way to address the matter).

________________________________________
Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge
Date:

May 26, 2011

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