Engles v. Sherman Hospital

Filing 12

MEMORANDUM Order Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 2/3/2012:Mailed notice(srn, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
MICHAEL C. ENGLES,
Plaintiff,
v.
SHERMAN HOSPITAL,
Defendant.

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No.

12 C 70

MEMORANDUM ORDER
Counsel for defendant Sherman Hospital (the “Hospital”) has
filed its Answer to the First Amended Complaint at Law (“FAC”)
brought by Michael Engles (“Engles”) against the Hospital.

This

sua sponte memorandum order is occasioned by the unacceptability
of that responsive pleading in several respects.
To begin with, the Hospital’s counsel has not complied with
this District Court’s LR 10.1, a directive whose obvious purpose
is to enable the reader--whether Engles’ counsel or this Court or
anyone else--to look at a single document to see the respects in
which the parties do or do not part company, rather than having
to flip back and forth between the FAC and the Answer.

That

alone calls for striking the Answer (with leave granted to
replead, of course), and this Court so orders.
Next the Hospital’s counsel impermissibly departs from the
unambiguous formulation established by Fed. R. Civ. P. (“Rule”)
8(b)(5) as the predicate for a deemed denial of the Hospital’s
allegations (see Answer ¶¶3 and 5), then compounds that error by

an improvident denial of Engles’ corresponding allegations and
one meaningless demand for “strict proof,” whatever that may mean
(see App’x ¶1 to State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Riley, 199
F.R.D. 276, 278 (N.D. Ill. 2001)).

As for the outright denial,

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 the truth of an allegation then proceed to
deny it in accordance with Rule 11(b)?

Accordingly the denials

are stricken wherever they appear in the Answer.
Finally,1 even apart from the already-mentioned
noncompliance with the prescribed terms of the Rule 8(b)(5)
disclaimer, it is counsel--not a Hospital representative who
really knows the facts rather than via hearsay--that provides an
affidavit supporting the disclaimer.

Federal practice does not

call for an affidavit at all, but if one is repeated in the
Amended Answer called for here, it should not be done by the
lawyer.
Accordingly the entire Answer and counsel’s affidavit are
stricken, with leave granted to file a self-contained Amended
Answer on or before February 15, 2012.

No charge is to be made

to the Hospital by its counsel for the added work and expense

1

This “finally” should not be misunderstood, for this
Court has not sought to be exhaustive in speaking of the
pleading’s defects, a matter better left to Engles’ counsel to
identify.
2

incurred in correcting counsel’s errors.

Hospital’s counsel are

ordered to apprise their client to that effect by letter, with a
copy to be transmitted to this Court’s chambers as an
informational matter (not for filing).

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

February 3, 2012

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