Opinion
No. 02 C 3595
July 3, 2002
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Even though all five defendants in this Title VII case — City of Burbank and four of its Police Department's high level officers — are represented by the same law firm, counsel has needlessly filed a separate Answer for each defendant. Quite apart from the inattention to the environment evidenced by killing so many more trees than is reasonably required (why spend more than 70 pages in reproducing each set of the multiple answers, when about a fifth of that would do the job?), that places an inordinate burden on the reader in ascertaining the respects in which the defendants share common cause, as contrasted with the areas (if any) in which they part company.
It is not at all difficult — and, as already indicated, it would be a courtesy to opposing counsel and to the Court — for defense counsel to prepare and file a single answer on behalf of all five defendants, collectivizing their responses where appropriate and distinguishing among their individual answers where necessary. Accordingly this Court sua sponte strikes the existing answers from the file physically (thus eliminating wholly needless bulk) and grants leave to defendants to file a single collective Answer on or before July 17, 2002.