Opinion
Case No. 16 C 11257
01-11-2017
JUSTIN ANTHONY McNEAL, Plaintiff, v. R/O M. GRACZK #17295, et al., Defendants.
MEMORANDUM ORDER
This Court's December 19, 2016 memorandum order (the "Order") dealt with some of the threshold matters posed by the "Complaint Under the Civil Rights Act, Title 42 Section 1983" ("Section 1983") then newly filed by pro se plaintiff Justin McNeal ("McNeal"), but the Order was unable to address the requirement that 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a) makes a precondition to McNeal's right to bring such a Section 1983 action. Because that inability was "in part (but not solely) due to the usual low quality of reproduction of the forms that this Court [had] received" from McNeal (Order at 2), this Court enlisted the able assistance of S. Ann Walls, one of the pro se law clerks on the staff of this District Court, to look into the matter.
Attorney Walls has done an exemplary job in reviewing the relevant documents and has recommended that McNeal's action should be permitted to proceed on the premise that if defense counsel were hereafter to raise the exhaustion-of-administrative-remedies issue, the matter could be addressed at that time. That recommendation makes eminently good sense, and this Court will proceed on that basis.
As Order at 4 indicated, McNeal's Motion for Attorney Representation (Dkt. No . 4) is now ripe for decision, and this Court grants it. It has accordingly obtained the name of this member of the District Court trial bar to represent McNeal:
Thomas W. Goedert, Esq.
Crane, Heyman, Simon, Welch & Clar
135 South LaSalle Street
Suite 3705
Chicago, Illinois 60603
Phone: 312-641-6777
Email: tgoedert@craneheyman.com.
This Court is contemporaneously is issuing an initial scheduling order setting a status hearing at 9:15 a.m. February 22, 2017. In the interim attorney Goedert is directed (1) to make arrangements for service of process, (2) to confer with McNeal and, when he learns the identity of any defense counsel, to confer with that counsel as well, so that plans for the pursuit of this action can be discussed on an informed basis at that status hearing.
/s/_________
Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge Date: January 11, 2017