Hayes v. Cook County et al

Filing 5

MEMORANDUM Order, Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 9/10/2013. (ea, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
DION HAYES #20130722114,
Plaintiff,
v.
COOK COUNTY JAIL, et al.,
Defendants.

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No.

13 C 6374

MEMORANDUM ORDER
Dion Hayes (“Hayes”) has filed a self-prepared 42 U.S.C.
§1983 (“Section 1983”) Complaint1 against defendants whom he
lists as “Cook County” and “Chicago Police Department.”

This

Court has conducted the initial screening called for by 28 U.S.C.
§1915A(a),2 and it finds that both the Complaint and this action
must be dismissed pursuant to Section 1915A(b), for although some
of the several problems posed by the Complaint might perhaps be
curable (and those will be dealt with in the next paragraph for
purely informational purposes), at least one flaw is fatal as
Hayes has presented his claim.
First, there is no way in which Cook County can be held
accountable for Hayes’ grievance, and the Chicago Police

1

“Self-prepared” is used in the sense that Hayes has
utilized the printed form of Complaint made available by this
District Court’s Clerk’s Office to persons in custody (Hayes is
an inmate at the Cook County Jail), with the information called
for by the printed form being filled out in handwriting.
2

Further citations to provisions of Title 28 will take the
form “Section --,” omitting the prefatory 28 U.S.C.

Department is not a suable entity in any event.

Second, the In

Forma Pauperis Application (“Application”) with which Hayes has
accompanied his Complaint is not itself accompanied by a detailed
statement of the transactions in Hayes’ trust fund account, as is
expressly required both by Section 1915(a)(2) and by the
Application form itself.
But to turn to ultimate substantive matters, here is all
that Hayes has alleged as his Statement of Claim in Complaint ¶IV
(copied verbatim):
On October 9, 2012 I was aquitted
I would like to put a law suit in
Suffering, Character Image, Money
Procedures, and would like for my
exspunge.

of 1st degree murder.
for 3 yr of Pain and
lost, Unproper Police
record to be

That, says Hayes, should entitle him to “$100 for every hour that
I couldn’t spend with my daughter” during a three year period.
There is simply no way in which that claim can survive
scrutiny and analysis.

Although federal practice calls for

notice pleading rather than fact pleading (as is practiced in the
state court system), the teaching of the Twombly-Iqbal canon is
that allegations far beyond the amorphous and purely conclusory
skeletal statement by Hayes are required to survive Section 1915A
scrutiny.
Simply put, the Complaint “fails to state a claim upon which
relief may be granted” (Section 1915A(b)(1)), and as stated
earlier both the Complaint and this action are dismissed.

2

Under

the circumstances this Court will not require Hayes to supplement
the Application, as would be required to saddle him with the
obligation to pay the $350 fee in future installments.

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

September 10, 2013

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