Franklin v. Howard Brown Healthcare Center

Filing 32

MEMORANDUM Opinion and Order. Signed by the Honorable Jeffrey Cole on 5/10/2018: Judge Honorable Jeffrey Cole no longer referred to the case.Mailed notice(jms, )

Case: 1:17-cv-08376 Document #: 32 Filed: 05/10/18 Page 1 of 4 PageID #:237

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
JOSE FRANKLIN a/k/a MONICA JAMES,
Plaintiff,
v.
HOWARD BROWN HEALTH CENTER,
Defendant.

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No. 17 C 8376
Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Cole

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
The defendant has filed a Motion for an Extension of Time to Answer and Object to
Plaintiff's Interrogatories and Document Requests. [Dkt. #23]. The requests were served on March
30, 2018 in accordance with the schedule set by Judge Aspen. [Dkt. #15]. Thus, the defendant's
responses were due April 30, 2018. The defendant, inexplicably, chose to file its motion for an
extension of that deadline after the close of business on that day, at 6:14 p.m. April 30th. Filing a
motion for an extension of time on the day the deadline expires – or, as here, immediately after the
deadline expires – is the worst kind of sandbagging. Based on the defendant's motion, it knew at least
as early as April 5th, and no later than April 11th, [Dkt. #23, ¶¶ 5, 6], that it would not be meeting the
April 30th deadline.1 A motion for an extension of time filed on the day the deadline expires – never
mind after the close of business that day – unfairly paints the court into a corner and presumes the
court will grant the motion. However, case law simply does not support the gambit. See the

1

This, of course, assumes the truthfulness of the representations. But those representations need not
be accorded the weight of an encyclical and are often questionable at best. See Jones v. Jones, 217 F.2d 239,
242 (7th Cir.1954); BankDirect Capital Fin., LLC v. Capital Premium Fin., Inc., 2018 WL 1616725, at *1
(N.D. Ill. 2018); 317 F.R.D. 620, 625 (N.D. Ill. 2016); Lukaneva v. Levy Restaurants at McCormick Place,
2006 WL 1823169, at *8 (N.D. Ill. 2006).

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discussion in cases such as Logan v. Berryhill, 2017 WL 1344521, at *2 (N.D. Ill. 2017); Physicians
Healthsource, Inc. v. Allscripts Health Sols., Inc., 254 F. Supp. 3d 1007, 1030 n.17 (N.D. Ill. 2017);
G & G Closed Circuit Events, LLC v. Castillo, 2016 WL 3551634, at *7–8 (N.D. Ill. 2016).
Moreover, the defendant wants to lay its tardiness at the feet of the plaintiff, suggesting that
plaintiff ought have been more accommodating and "granted" – “agreed to” would be a more
accurate term – defendant's request for an extension. [Dkt. #23, ¶¶ 9, 11, 14]. Ignored, however, is
the defendant’s behavior and disregard of Judge Aspen’s schedule. While Fed.R.Civ.P. 29 allows
for parties to stipulate to extensions of discovery deadlines, the Rule is not mandatory; a party
following the rules and complying with schedules need not accommodate a party that is not. And,
here, the defendant’s excuse – that its IT department was too busy to comply with discovery
responsibilities [Dkt. #23, ¶ 6] – is a weak one, at best. If the President of the United States must find
time to comply with discovery requests, Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997), so, too, must an IT
department of a private litigant. Johnson v. Jung, 242 F.R.D. 481, 486 (N.D. Ill. 2007). The “I’m
too busy to comply” is a commonly heard refrain in discovery disputes. It is seldom persuasive. It
is certainly not persuasive when the noncompliant litigant does not bother to inform its opposition
of the claimed problem or even to file for an extension of the discovery schedule until after it has
expired. That is simply not an acceptable way for litigants and their counsel to behave. See AT&T
Corp. v. Park I–10 Motors, 2014 WL 12580445, at *1 (W.D. Tex. 2014).
It should be pointed out that the parties do not “own” the discovery schedule, as defendant
seems to think, granting extensions between themselves according to their whims. The discovery
schedule is set by the court and it is the court alone that can ultimately grant a modification of that
schedule. There is an overriding public interest in prompt resolution of legal disputes. Gray v.
Schaub, 182 F.3d 921 (7th Cir. 1999); Fort Howard Paper Co. v. Standard Havens, Inc., 901 F.2d

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1373, 1380 (7th Cir. 1990). There is not only a cost to the public at large resulting from needless
delays, but to the other litigants waiting in the queue for the court's attention. See Chapman v. First
Index, Inc., 796 F.3d 783, 787 (7th Cir. 2015); Fort Howard, 901 F.2d at 1380; R-Boc
Representatives, Inc. v. Minemyer, 66 F. Supp. 3d 1124, 1130 (N.D. Ill. 2014). As discovery is
extended by the fiat of one of the parties, time is taken away from other cases. The problem here was
not the plaintiff following the schedule set by Judge Aspen, but the defendant’s IT department
claiming it had more pressing matters and its lawyer not informing in a timely way either the court
or plaintiff’s lawyer. And no excuse is given for that sort of insouciance – even if the self-serving
excuse now offered were to be accepted. [Dkt. # 23, Pars. 5-6].
But defendant assures the court that the extension it seeks will not interfere with Judge
Aspen’s discovery cut-off date of August 1, 2018 – a date Judge Aspen has said will not be extended.
[Dkt. #15]. In terms of complying with deadlines, the defendant is off to a rocky start, [Dkt. #10],
and who can tell how busy the IT department will claim to be down the line? It bears repeating that
the defendant sought to paint the court into a corner by the timing of its motion for an extension.
This one time, however, I choose to exercise the vast discretion courts have in discovery, King v.
Ford Motor Co., 872 F.2d 833, 838 (7th Cir. 2017), on a limited basis and to grant the motion insofar
as it seeks additional time to respond to the plaintiff’s discovery requests.
However, that same discretion will not be exercised in favor of the defendant’s request for
additional time to object to the discovery requests. Instead, the defendant must fully answer the
requests as posed and will not be allowed to raise any objections which might otherwise have been
proper had the responses and/or objections been timely filed. The defendant is reminded that “delays
have dangerous ends.” Cleversafe, Inc. v. Amplidata, Inc., 2014 WL 2609654, at *1 (N.D. Ill.
3

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2014)(quoting Henry VI, Part I (1592) Act III, sc. ii 1.33). We live in a world of deadlines.... The
practice of law is no exception.” Raymond v. Ameritech Corp., 442 F.3d 600 (7th Cir.2006). Lawyers
and litigants who decide to play by rules of their own invention will find that the game cannot be
won.” United States v. Golden Elevator, Inc., 27 F.3d 301, 302 (7th Cir.1994).
For the reasons discussed above, the defendant’s Motion for an Extension of Time to May
21, 2018 to answer the outstanding discovery requests is granted. There will be no further extensions.
However, the defendant’s motion is denied insofar as it seeks the additional time for the defendant
to raise objections to the discovery requests when they are answered on May 21st.

ENTERED:
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

DATE: 5/10/18

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