In Re: Stericycle, Inc., Sterisafe Contract Litigation

Filing 186

MEMORANDUM Order; Joint motion to set briefing schedule and continue status 184 is granted. Response to motion for class certification 133 is due by 8/29/2016. Status hearing set for 9/6/2016 at 09:00 AM. Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 7/25/2016:Mailed notice(clw, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION

IN RE: STERICYCLE, INC., STERI-SAFE
CONTRACT LITIGATION

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Case No. 13 C 5795
MDL No. 2455

MEMORANDUM ORDER
This action, assigned (together with a number of individual satellite actions) to this Court
by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, has been the subject of plaintiffs' motion for
class certification since January 29 of this year. On May 10 this Court entered an order staying
proceedings pending mediation at the request of the parties. Although the parties engaged in
mediation, while at the same time fleshing out the substantive development of the MDL case,
those mediation efforts failed to produce an agreed-upon resolution.
That posture has triggered a joint motion (Dkt. No. 184) to set a briefing schedule on the
pending motion for class certification, calling for the August 29 filing of a submission in
opposition by defendant Stericycle, Inc. ("Stericycle") and a September 29 reply by plaintiffs.
That part of the parties' proposed timetable is entirely satisfactory, but long experience has taught
this Court that the automatic scheduling of a one-two-three timetable, with a reply by the movant
built in, often makes no sense (particularly where, as here, both sides are well represented by
experienced counsel). In a high percentage of cases in that situation, the parties will have met
head-on in their submissions in support of and opposition to such a motion, with no real need for
a reply by the movant -- all too often a previously-scheduled reply produces little more than
regurgitation of points made by the movant the first time around.

Accordingly this Court simply orders that the Stericycle opposition be filed on or before
August 29, with a status hearing set for 9 a.m. September 6, 2016. That timetable will allow
plaintiffs' counsel and this Court to review Stericycle's response to see whether a reply appears to
be called for. If plaintiffs' counsel see no need for a reply, they should communicate that view to
Stericycle's counsel and to this Court's courtroom deputy in time for the scheduled status hearing
to be vacated, without any need for counsel to appear -- but if this Court were to determine
independently that it would be constructive to order a reply, its courtroom deputy would
communicate with counsel for the parties in advance of the scheduled status date and they would
be expected to appear at that time.

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Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge
Date: July 25, 2016

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