Opinion
No. 01 C 8146
December 14, 2001
MEMORANDUM ORDER
During the course of the previously-scheduled December 12 status hearing in this action, counsel for defendants Ridge Chrysler Plymouth L.L.C. ("Ridge") and Gerald Gorman ("Gorman") moved orally for leave to file their appearances and their Answer to the Complaint brought against them by Automotive Finance Corporation. This Court immediately granted such leave, but its subsequent opportunity to review the tendered Answer has demonstrated the unwisdom of giving anyone (except perhaps a spouse) an already-signed blank check. It turns out that there are a few troublesome aspects of the Answer that call for further attention by the Ridge-Gorman lawyers. They will be addressed briefly here.
First, Answer ¶ 3 includes a disclaimer of the type that is permitted by the second sentence of Fed.R.Civ.P. ("Rule") 8(b). But in this instance that disclaimer relates to the identity of one of the two Complaint-asserted members of Ridge, an Illinois limited liability company. It is really inconceivable, of course, that Ridge does not know the identity of its own members. And because the states of citizenship of those members are critical to the existence or nonexistence of diversity jurisdiction (Cosgrove v. Bartolotta, 150 F.3d 729, 731 (7th Cir. 1998)), Ridge is ordered to include that information in the Amended Answer provided for later in this opinion.
It does not matter that Answer ¶ 5 has admitted the pro forma jurisdictional allegations of Complaint ¶ 5, for in that respect it is the underlying jurisdictional facts and not the barebones legal conclusion that must control.
Next, the Answer is chock-full of nonresponses to the Complaint's allegations about the Credit Agreement whose asserted violation forms the gravarnen of part of the Complaint — instead Answer ¶¶ 7-11 simply state that the Agreement "speaks for itself" and then go on to deny any allegation in each of the corresponding paragraphs of the Complaint "that is inconsistent therewith." As for the unacceptable "speaks for itself" locution, see App. ¶ 3 to State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Riley, 199 F.R.D. 276, 279 (N.D. Ill. 2001). And as for the Answer's lame attempt to deny Complaint allegations that are assertedly "inconsistent" with the document, that invitation to read the pleader's mind regarding any purported inconsistencies is totally uninformative. All of those paragraphs of the Answer are therefore stricken.
That same flaw taints Answer ¶ 14, which makes the same nonresponse as to a second document. Answer ¶ 14 is also stricken, and no reason appears to exist as to why defendants should not simply admit Complaint ¶ 14.
That would also appear to be true in whole or in part as to the allegations in Complaint ¶¶ 7-11.
Finally, Gorman repeatedly commits the same sin in Answer ¶¶ 23-26, failing to answer a whole series of allegations as to an Unconditional Guaranty that he signed. Those nonresponses are stricken as well.
Because so many paragraphs in the Answer are improper, it is stricken in its entirety — a desirable way to avoid a patchwork pleading scheme that would require readers to refer to more than one document to see just what is and what is not being denied (or deemed denied). Leave is granted to file a self-contained Amended Answer in this Court's chambers on or before December 26, 2001, failing which all of the corresponding allegations of the Complaint will be deemed admitted.
No charge is to be made to defendants by their counsel for the added work and expense incurred in correcting counsel's own errors. Defense counsel are ordered to apprise their clients to that effect by letter, with a copy to be transmitted to this Court's chambers as an informational matter (not for filing).