Royce v. Needle et al

Filing 94

MEMORANDUM Order Motion To Stay Proceedings as to Allocation of the Amari Suit Plaintiffs' Shares of the Amari Suit Recovery 42 is granted. Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 6/18/2015:Mailed notice(clw, )

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

MERLE L. ROYCE,
Plaintiff,
v.
MICHAEL R. NEEDLE, P.C., et al.,
Defendants.

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Case No. 15 C 259

MEMORANDUM ORDER
During yesterday's status hearing in this complex case this Court reiterated its view that
the key issue that is likely to prove dispositive of the principal matter in dispute is whether the
attorneys' fees payable to counsel out of the agreed-upon settlement amount in the underlying
case are as specified in Subsection (A) or instead in Subsection (B) of Section IV.1 of the
October 6, 2008 agreement between the now-opposed lawyers and their clients. That discussion
eventuated in this Court's setting a July 17 date for one of the lawyers now engaged in combat,
Michael Needle, to respond to two motions respectively attacking Counts III and IV of his
Counterclaim on that subject.
This memorandum order, however, relates to another subject discussed at the status
hearing: an effort to sort out, from the welter of other pending motions in the case, which of
them could appropriately be closed out (even temporarily) while the motions discussed in the
preceding paragraph are in the works and under consideration, whereas others ought to be treated
as simply continued during that deliberative process. That discussion led to this Court's ordering
the current termination of a number of those other motions -- Dkt. Nos. 48, 78, 85, 86 and 91 --

while this Court asked each of the parties to look at the other pending motions to see whether any
could be cleared away as underbrush for the present. This Court will await input from the
parties' in that respect, but in the meantime in holds that Dkt. No. 42 filed April 20, 2015,
captioned "Motion To Stay Proceedings as to Allocation of the Amari Suit Plaintiffs' Shares of
the Amari Suit Recovery," should obviously be granted as well. Because that allocation will
necessarily be impacted by the resolution of the fee dispute discussed in the first paragraph of
this memorandum order (and perhaps because considerations of mediation and arbitration may
become applicable as well), it makes no sense for such allocation proceedings to take place at
this point. Hence this Court grants the Dkt. No. 42 motion as well.

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Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge
Date: June 18, 2015

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