Thomas v. Chicago Police Department

Filing 78

WRITTEN Opinion entered by the Honorable Ronald A. Guzman on 5/13/2013: For the reasons stated below, Plaintiffs motion to vacate the dismissal [76-1] is denied. Mailed notice (cjg, )

Order Form (01/2005)

United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois
Name of Assigned Judge
or Magistrate Judge

Ronald A. Guzman

CASE NUMBER

11 C 8525

CASE
TITLE

Sitting Judge if Other
than Assigned Judge

DATE

5/13/2013

Thomas v. City of Chicago, et al.

DOCKET ENTRY TEXT

For the reasons stated below, Plaintiff’s motion to vacate the dismissal [76-1] is denied.

O[ For further details see text below.]

Docketing to mail notices.

STATEMENT
On February 14, 2013, defendant’s motion to compel Plaintiff's responses to written discovery (Dkt. #
64) was granted and Plaintiff was ordered to respond on or before March 11, 2013. Plaintiff failed to comply
with that order and failed to appear at the next status hearing date of April 2, 2013. On April 2, 2013, the
Court ordered the plaintiff to appear on April 17, 2013 and to comply with the Court’s order of February 14,
2013 or face sanctions. Nevertheless, Plaintiff failed to comply with the order to respond to defendant’s
written discovery requests. Instead, on April 17, 2013, Plaintiff appeared in Court and stated verbally that he
had no documents to produce. Plaintiff was advised that this is an insufficient response to defendant’s
discovery requests and was ordered to file and serve upon opposing counsel written responses to
interrogatories in compliance with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and to file and serve upon opposing
counsel written responses to requests to produce in compliance with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In
the event that he claimed, contrary to his prior representations, that he had no documents to produce, then he
was directed to file a signed written response stating that he has no such documents for each and every
category of documents described in the defendant’s request to produce documents. Plaintiff was warned that
failure to comply with the Court’s orders before May 8, 2013 would result in sanctions, including striking
Plaintiff’s pleadings and dismissing the cause of action.
Despite being directed to do so, Plaintiff failed to appear at the May 8, 2013 status. Defense counsel
appeared and stated that Plaintiff still had not served written responses to their discovery requests. The Court
noted that Plaintiff had been given several opportunities to respond in writing to discovery and had been
warned that his failure to do so could result in the dismissal of his case. Thus, Plaintiff having failed to
appear and having failed to serve written responses to discovery as directed, the Court dismissed the case
without prejudice. (Dkt. # 75.)
Plaintiff has filed a motion to vacate the dismissal. In it, he does not provide a reason for his failure
to appear at the May 8, 2013 status or state that he has complied with this Court’s orders to serve written
responses to defendants’ discovery requests. Instead, he states that he demanded defense counsel to
11C8525 Thomas v. City of Chicago

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STATEMENT
“reproduce records i.e. interrogatories of any and all parties” and that “Plaintiff[‘s] oral interrogatories are
sufficient and deny any response to written interrogatories.” (Dkt. # 76.) To the extent that Plaintiff
contends that his oral responses are sufficient and “denies” any written response, this is in direct
contradiction to this Court’s order (made on several occasions) to file written responses. Plaintiff’s motion to
vacate the dismissal is denied.

11C8525 Thomas v. City of Chicago

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