Opinion
No. 10 C 44.
February 4, 2010
MEMORANDUM ORDER
This proceeding was initiated almost exactly a month ago (on January 5) as "Dish Network's Motion To Enforce Bill Dickerson's Production." Since then this Court's efficient minute clerk has been checking with plaintiffs' counsel as to when the motion will be brought on for action by this Court, only to be met regularly with an answer along the lines of "We'll get around to it."
It would be an overstatement to characterize the matter as an "action," for technically no case has ever been opened for statistical purposes (a case number was assigned purely for recordkeeping purposes). Accordingly this matter is not reflected in the January 31 computer-generated printout of cases pending on this Court's calendar.
That is not of course the manner in which any such matter (or, indeed, any other court matter) should be handled — it is not the responsibility of this Court's busy staff to pursue counsel, rather than counsel attending to their own business. Meanwhile the motion (Dkt. 1) has continued to appear on the printout of pending motions that this Court regularly obtains to police its own calendar (the most recent of such printouts was generated on February 2).
This District Court's LR 5.3(b), 5.4 and 78.2 combine to address such inattention on the part of lawyers. Hence this Court had finally — just this morning — dictated for transcription what has gone before, concluding with a denial of the motion for failure to prosecute, when it received a copy of a notice of motion that had been filed electronically yesterday. True to form, that motion is also noncompliant with LR5.3(b) — it specifies a February 18 presentment date. Accordingly the motion is indeed denied.