Thomas v. Superintendent, Chicago Police, et al
Filing
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MEMORANDUM Order Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 8/23/2013. Mailed notice by judge's staff. (srb,)
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
WILLIE THOMAS #B-76493,
Plaintiff,
v.
SUPERINTENDENT, CHICAGO POLICE
OFFICER ACEVEDO, et al.,
Defendants.
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No.
12 C 10329
MEMORANDUM ORDER
Willie Thomas (“Thomas”) has submitted a hand-printed filing
that he labels “Motion To Reconsider Judgment”--a judgment that
he asserts “was issue [sic] on May 2, 2013.”
In fact the
judgment that had dismissed Thomas’ pro se Complaint and this
action was issued on January 30, 2013, some seven months ago,
pursuant to a memorandum order (“Order II”) issued that day--what
happened on May 2 was the issuance of Order III, a memorandum
order that explained Thomas’ continuing delinquencies in response
to three deficient motions that Thomas had filed on March 1.
In brief, Thomas has done nothing to merit the solicitude
that this Court customarily extends to pro se litigants (whether
prisoners or not) in cutting them a good deal of slack in
recognition of their typical unfamiliarity with court procedures.
Indeed, just two weeks before this action was brought this
Court’s colleague Honorable Virginia Kendall had dismissed an
earlier action brought by Thomas (12 C 9409) due to the same type
of failure that Thomas has exhibited here despite repeated
instructions from this Court as to what was lacking.
In this case Thomas’ initial filing prompted the swift
issuance of a January 7, 2013 memorandum order (“Order I”) that
pointed out in detail the things Thomas had to do to stay in
court.
Having done that, Order I gave Thomas time to provide
curative documents but warned him that nonperformance within that
time frame would trigger dismissal.
Because Thomas did not follow those clear and detailed
instructions, this Court kept its promise and dismissed his case
via Order II.
And when Thomas still did not do the job in
conjunction with his first motion for reconsideration filed in
March, Order III rejected such reconsideration.
Those three earlier memorandum orders by this Court,
although plainly issued in an effort to assist Thomas, failed to
accomplish their goal because Thomas paid them no heed--and there
is no question that Order II was justified in dismissing this
action on January 30 of this year.
Fed. R. Civ. P. (“Rule”)
59(e) then gave him 28 days within which to file or alter the
judgment of dismissal--a motion that plainly had to be coupled
with a curing of the deficiency that had caused the dismissal.
And had that been done, Thomas’ original filing date could have
remained effective (it will be recalled that the original filing
date was in late December 2012, just a couple of weeks short of
two years after the January 8, 2011 incident that was the
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predicate for his Section 1983 claim.
When Thomas then inexplicably took nearly seven months to
obtain and provide the information required of him in conjunction
with his second motion for reconsideration, that motion had to
qualify (if at all) under Rule 60(b).
In that regard (1) Thomas’
delays must be characterized as inexcusable neglect,1
taking
Rule 60(b)(1) out of play, (2) none of Rules 60(b)(2) through
60(b)(5) is even arguably implicated here and (3) the cases are
legion that teach Rule 60(b)(6) is not intended to be a catchall
escape hatch, available to rescue a party who (like Thomas) has
expressly failed one of the specific grounds for relief set out
in Rule 60(b)(1).
And the clincher that dooms Thomas is, as
Rule 60(c)(2) states:
The motion does not affect the judgment’s finality or
suspend its operation.
So the bottom line is that, with respect to the January 8,
2011 incident that triggered this action to begin with,
Thomas’
current and second motion for reconsideration has come well past
the two-year limitation period for Illinois-based Section 1983
actions.
And that in turn would leave available to Thomas a
potential claim of the defendant officer’s assertedly false
testimony at trial, a claim as to which Briscoe v. LaHue, 460
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On that score, it is clear--and this Court holds--that
the required information was not provided, and Thomas’ second
motion for reconsideration was not filed, “within a reasonable
time” as Rule 60(c)(1) requires.
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U.S. 325 (1983) and its progeny have conferred absolute immunity.
In sum, Thomas’ current motion to reconsider must be and is
denied.
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Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge
Date:
August 23, 2013
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