Opinion
No. 01 C 1419
April 24, 2001
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Golf Gifts and Gallery, Inc. ("Golf Gifts") has filed its Answer, Affirmative Defenses ("ADs") and Counterclaims to the Complaint brought against it by Howard Communications Ltd. ("Howard"). This memorandum order is issued sua sponte to call for correction of some flaws in that responsive pleading.
To begin with, Golf Gifts' admission of all of Howard's allegations in Complaint § 1 is coupled with a meaningless denial of "all remaining allegations of paragraph 1." That second sentence of Answer § 1 is stricken.
Next, several of Golf Gifts' claimed ADs misperceive that concept — see App. § 5 of State Farm v. Riley, 2001 WL 185486. Here are the problematic ADs:
1. A.D. 1 is simply wrong when Howard's allegations are taken at face value (as they must be for this purpose). A.D. 1 is stricken.
2. A.D. 2 is at odds with Complaint § 10 and is also stricken.
3. A.D. 3 is belied by Complaint §§ 14 and 15. It too is stricken.
4. A.D. 4 is flawed because it does not explain what assertedly indispensable parties are missing. Absent a supplementary submission explaining the claimed deficiency, to be filed in this Court's chambers on or before May 3, 2001, that AD will also be stricken.
5. A.D. 5 is in direct conflict with Complaint § 13. It is also stricken.
6. ADs 7 and 8 betray a mistakenly expansive notion of the Rule 9(b) requirement of particularity (see Leatherman v. Tarrant Cty. Narcotics Intelligence Coordination Unit, 507 U.S. 163, 168 (1993)). They too are stricken.
7. A.D. 9 cannot stand because of its lack of particularity — it is wholly uninformative. Unless Golf Gifts files an appropriate amendment to its Answer in this Court's chambers on or before the same May 3 date that provides adequate notice of the claimed predicate for any laches or estoppel defense, it too will be stricken.