Opinion
Case No. 15 C 1494
03-03-2015
CHRISTINE NORRIS, Plaintiff, v. FRANCISCAN PHYSICIAN NETWORK / SPECIALTY PHYSICIANS OF ILLINOIS, CRAIG MILLER, NITA WIRKUS, SHEREE BOYD, and MICHELLE BURGIO, Defendants.
MEMORANDUM ORDER
This Court has just received a courtesy copy (see LR 5.2(f)) of the Complaint brought by Christine Norris ("Norris") against Franciscan Physician Network / Specialty Physicians of Illinois, Craig Miller, Nita Wirkus, Sheree Boyd and Michelle Burgio. Norris' counsel has accompanied that Complaint with a motion to waive the customary filing fee pursuant to 38 U.S.C. § 4323(h)(1), and that motion is granted.
There is, however, one problematic aspect of the Complaint that has occasioned the issuance of this memorandum order rather than a simple confirmation of the just-mentioned waiver by a minute entry. Despite the mandate of Fed. R. Civ. P. ("Rule") 8(a)(2) that calls for "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief," Norris' counsel has chosen to set out a two-page so-called "Introduction " that comprises 13 paragraphs embodying a preview of coming attractions, followed then by a 70-plus paragraph evidentiary narrative that is really inappropriate in a federal litigation system whose fundamental approach is one of notice (not evidence) pleading.
That approach has given at least this reader the sense famously described by that noted legal scholar Yogi Berra as "deja vu all over again." But because this Court has already been subjected to the burden of reading the Complaint as filed and the defect identified here is a venial rather than a mortal sin, this Court does not contemplate ordering Norris to refile in a more appropriate form (although it does recognize that defense counsel will therefore have to sustain the burden of preparing an unduly repetitious paragraph-by-paragraph response).
Finally, this Court is contemporaneously issuing its customary initial scheduling order. Norris' counsel is ordered to provide a copy of this memorandum order to defense counsel as soon as the identity of that counsel is ascertained.
/s/_________
Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge
Date: March 3, 2015