Opinion
Case No. 14 C 4090
09-02-2015
FABIAN BASINA and MIKHAIL RUIZ, Plaintiffs, v. SUSHI THAI, Defendant.
MEMORANDUM ORDER
Counsel for defendant Sushi Thai has belatedly delivered to this Court's chambers a copy of its Amended Answer (Dkt. No. 41), filed on August 14, to the Fair Labor Standards Act Complaint brought against it by Fabian Basina and Mikhail Ruiz. Because that response is shot through with a repeated assertion that has no proper place in federal pleading, the entire pleading is stricken sua sponte -- but with leave granted to replace it with an appropriate Second Amended Answer.
By far the majority of the paragraphs in the Answer begin with or contain this statement:
This paragraph states a legal conclusion which Defendant does not have to respond to.Just where defendant's experienced counsel got that idea is a mystery -- instead counsel ought to read (perhaps even commit to memory) what this Court has said in App'x ¶ 2 to State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Riley, 199 F.R.D. 276, 278 (N.D. Ill. 2001). Moreover, if counsel would only read some of the Complaint's allegations rather than repeatedly parroting the erroneous statement quoted above, he would see that various of those allegations appear to call for straightforward admissions rather than counsel's advancing a usually mistaken denial of those allegations (see, for example, Complaint ¶¶ 1, 2 and 5-8).
This is not to say that the Complaint is a model pleading form either -- for example, it mysteriously omits Paragraph numbers 3, 4 and 12-16. --------
It would frankly be an imposition on this Court, requiring the expenditure of more time and effort than are warranted, for it to provide a comprehensive chapter and verse treatment of the Amended Answer. Instead defense counsel is sent back to the drawing board with instructions to read the Complaint and its allegations carefully and then to provide a responsive pleading that is faithful to the notice pleading regime that serves the purposes of the federal system. That Second Amended Answer is ordered to be filed on or before September 18, 2015.
No charge may be made to defendant by its counsel for the added work and expense incurred in correcting counsel's errors. Counsel is ordered to apprise his client to that effect by letter, with a copy to be transmitted to this Court's chambers as an informational matter (not for filing).
/s/_________
Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge
Date: September 2, 2015