Matteson Hospitality Real Estate, LLC v. Great American Insurance Company of New York

Filing 4

MEMORANDUM Order: Plaintiff's counsel is to provide an adequate explanation as a dismissal for want of prosecution on August 1, 2016 would appear to be in order. Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 7/25/2016:Mailed notice(clw, )

7IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION

MATTESON HOSPITALITY REAL
ESTATE, LLC,
Plaintiff,
v.
GREAT AMERICAN INSURANCE
COMPANY OF NEW YORK,
Defendant.

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Case No. 15 C 10390

MEMORANDUM ORDER
This action has just presented an extraordinary -- and really impermissible -- situation to
this Court. Suit was originally filed just over nine months ago (on November 18, 2015), after
which this Court followed its customary practice of allowing a fair amount of leeway for
plaintiff's counsel to provide this Court's chambers with a paper "courtesy copy," as required by
this District Court's LR 5.2(f). 1
Accordingly this Court waited two weeks (until December 2) before it entered the type of
order that it considers called for when no "courtesy copy" has been delivered during that more
extended time period -- an order that required delivery forthwith and imposed a $100 fine for
violation of the LR. And then total silence ensued. This Court's even-numbered law clerk was
then forced to engage in periodic follow-up efforts with plaintiff's counsel, with a total lack of

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This Court recognizes, of course, that the one working day timetable set up by that LR
is too short when the pleading involved is a complaint, as to which its author necessarily has no
advance knowledge of the identity of the judge to whom the computerized assignment system
will deliver the case.

success until -- mirabile dictu!! -- a hand-delivered copy of the Complaint together with a check
for $100 came to this Court's chambers with a brief letter that began "[m]y apologies for the
delay" !!
Such neglect is truly intolerable. Moreover, the docket entry for the original filing back
in November 2015 stated that the Complaint was filed "without Exhibits, which due to size shall
be filed separately." Yet that was never done, so that Exhibits A - G, comprising two insurance
policies, some photographs, two reports and a Statement in Proof of Loss has not even now been
tendered to the Clerk's Office.
Astonishingly, what appears to be at issue is a claimed loss of $2,774,157.65 (Complaint
¶ 25), so that counsel's neglect is doubly mystifying. It is difficult to know just how to address
this procedural wreck adequately, but unless some adequate explanation is provided swiftly a
dismissal for want of prosecution on August 1, 2016 would appear to be in order.

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

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