Selan v. Valley View Community School District Unit School District 365-U

Filing 16

MEMORANDUM Order Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 4/13/2011:Mailed notice(srn, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
LYNDA HALVERSON SELAN,
Plaintiff,
v.
VALLEY VIEW COMMUNITY UNIT
SCHOOL DISTRICT 365-U,
Defendant.

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No.

10 C 7223

MEMORANDUM ORDER
Last week’s status hearing in this action revealed that the
absence of a responsive pleading in this Court’s chambers file
was the result of defense counsel’s noncompliance with the
LR 5.2(f) requirement that a paper copy of every court filing
(importantly including all electronic filings) must be
transmitted promptly to the judge to whom the case is assigned.
This Court both ordered the months-late-delivery to chambers and
imposed a modest fine on the Rule-violating counsel.
But when counsel then complied with that delivery order, an
examination of the Answer and Affirmative Defenses that had been
filed back in mid-January 2011 had violated another rule, this
one substantive rather than procedural.

Despite the crystal-

clear roadmap charted out by Fed. R. Civ. P. (“Rule”) 8(b)(5) for
disclaimers that give the pleader the benefit of a deemed denial,
Answer ¶¶4, 7.i through 7.iii, 7 (erroneously numbered), 12, 21
and 60 departed from that path.

Moreover, that error was

compounded by defense counsel’s having followed each of those

disclaimers with the phrase “and, therefore, denies the same.”
That is of course oxymoronic--how can a party that must assert
(presumably in good faith) that it lacks even enough information
to form a belief as to an allegation’s truth then deny it in
accordance with Rule 11(b)?
Accordingly defense counsel is ordered to file an amendment
to the existing Answer (not a full-blown new Answer, which would
be far too bulky) that corrects those designated paragraphs by
properly invoking Rule 8(b)(5) without the oxymoronic denials.
Defense counsel is further ordered:
1.

to make no charge to the client for the services

involved or the expenses incurred in connection with either
correction--the furnishing of the chambers copy or the
pleading amendment ordered here;
2.

to bear the earlier-imposed fine without

reimbursement from the client;
3.

to send a letter to the client confirming those

undertakings, accompanied by a copy of this memorandum
order; and
4.

to send to this Court a copy of the letter to the

client (purely for information and not for filing).

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

April 13, 2011
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