Carbajal v. City of Highland Park, et al.

Filing 16

MEMORANDUM Order: This memorandum order is issued sua sponte to address some problematic aspects of defendants' Affirmative Defenses. Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 11/29/2016:Mailed notice(clw, )

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

RODNEY CARBAJAL,
Plaintiff,
v.
CITY OF HIGHLAND PARK, ILLINOIS
POLICE DEPARTMENT, an Illinois
Municipality, et al.,
Defendants.

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Case No. 16 C 8364

MEMORANDUM ORDER
Contemporaneously with their delivery to this Court of a motion to dismiss Counts III
and IV of the Employment Discrimination Complaint ("Complaint") brought against them by
Rodney Carbajal ("Carbajal"), defendants have also delivered a copy of their Answer and
Affirmative Defenses ("ADs") to Counts I and II of the Complaint. This memorandum order is
issued sua sponte to address some problematic aspects of the ADs. Here they are:
1.

AD 1, which asserts that Carbajal's "claims are barred to the extent he has
failed to exhaust his administrative remedies," needs fleshing out. Such a
substantive defense, which has the potential for narrowing the scope of
litigation, should be tendered by a properly supported motion so that it
may be dealt with on the merits, rather than its lying dormant and having
to be addressed after the parties have devoted material resources to issues
that may be out of the case as a matter of law. Accordingly defendants are
required to file such a properly supported motion on or before

December 20, 2016, failing which AD 1 will be denied as having been
forfeited.
2.

To the extent that defendants view Carbajal's claims as "based on events
occurring outside of the statute of limitations," the same principle as stated
in the preceding paragraph is applicable. In that respect it must be
recognized, of course, that any allegations in the Complaint that deal with
events falling outside of the statute of limitations, even though not
actionable in themselves, may still be relevant to the extent that they may
evidence a prohibited discriminatory mindset or motivation for action.

3.

ADs 4 and 5 are inconsistent with the basic premise of Fed. R. Civ. P.
8(c), which requires a party advancing an AD to accept all well-pleaded
allegations of a complaint, together with reasonable inferences from those
allegations, as gospel. Those ADs are at odds, for example, with
Complaint ¶ 40 and are accordingly stricken.

4.

AD 7 adds nothing to the current pleading mix because it is purely
speculative. If grounds for another AD were to arise in the future,
defendants will be free to tender such added AD as a proposed amendment
to the Answer. Hence AD 7 is also stricken.

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Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge
Date: November 29, 2016

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