Phillips et al v. DePaul University et al

Filing 10

MEMORANDUM Order Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 3/14/2012:Mailed notice(srn, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
JONATHAN PHILLIPS, et al.,

)
)
Plaintiffs,
)
)
v.
)
)
DePAUL UNIVERSITY, etc., et al.,)
)
Defendants.
)

No.

12 C 1791

MEMORANDUM ORDER
This District Court’s random assignment system has just
delivered the captioned action to this Court’s calendar via
removal from the Circuit Court of Cook County’s Chancery
Division, with federal subject matter jurisdiction having been
invoked by defendant DePaul University (“DePaul”) under the Class
Action Fairness Act.

That assignment has triggered (as always)

this Court’s issuance of an initial scheduling order, but one
aspect of the Complaint has also led to the contemporaneous
issuance of this memorandum order.
As may be perfectly appropriate under state court practice,
the Complaint couples the plaintiffs’ pleading of evidence with a
vengeance (its 134 paragraphs occupy just over 56 pages) with a
substantial number of exhibits whose aggregate bulk exceeds that
of the Complaint itself by a substantial margin.

If such a

filing had been attempted in this District Court as an original
matter, there is no question that this Court would have stricken
it as noncompliant with Fed. R. Civ. P. (“Rule”) 8(a), which

calls for (1) “a short and plain statement of the grounds for the
court’s jurisdiction” and (2) “a short and plain statement of the
claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.”
That poses something of a dilemma.

Pleading in the federal

courts is of course controlled by the Rules, but plaintiffs’
counsel can scarcely be faulted for conforming to state court
practice in a lawsuit filed there in the first instance.

All the

same, this Court is loath to thrust on defense counsel the task
of pleading in response to such an extraordinarily prolix
Complaint that would not have passed muster if brought here in
the first instance.
Accordingly plaintiffs’ counsel are ordered to file, as
promptly as possible, a self-contained Amended Complaint that
more reasonably meets the Rule 8(a) standards,1 after which
defense counsel are ordered to file a responsive pleading within
21 days of their receipt of that Amended Complaint.2

That task

on both sides should readily be capable of completion before the
initial status hearing, which (as always) this Court orders to be

1

While they are at it, plaintiffs’ counsel ought to
correct their prayers for relief under what they have labeled as
their First Cause of Action and Second Cause of Action. In each
of those instances counsel have mistakenly asked relief against
another law school (IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law) rather than
named defendant DePaul.
2

Even though the legal effect of an amended complaint is
to supersede the original, in this instance the state court
version can effectively serve the function of a detailed bill of
particulars.
2

held 49 days after the original Complaint’s filing in this
federal court.

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

March 14, 2012

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