Opinion
No. 11 C 4560
08-06-2013
DOVEY WHITE, Plaintiff, v. UNITED CREDIT UNION, Defendant.
MEMORANDUM ORDER
Dovey White ("White") has sent a letter to this Court complaining that she has not been treated fairly by defense counsel Elizabeth McDuffie and by Magistrate Judge Daniel Martin, who has been supervising discovery since May 2012. By way of background, White had been represented by retained counsel when her Complaint was filed in July 2011, but those counsel notified her of their withdrawal from representation just two months later. Since then White has been proceeding pro se.
That task was originally assigned to then Magistrate Judge Morton Denlow after serious disputes in that respect had arisen. When Judge Denlow retired, the responsibility for supervision was reassigned to Judge Martin.
As for White's complaints about attorney McDuffie's conduct, this Court leaves those issues to the able handling provided by Judge Martin. And as for the Magistrate Judge himself, even before this Court and its colleagues selected him for that post out of a small group of finalists that had survived the screening of a very large number of candidates by a committee appointed for that purpose, he had been a member of this District Court's outstanding Federal Defender group for a good many years. In that capacity he had appeared before this Court and its colleagues on many occasions, exhibiting both legal ability and the type of temperament that stands any judicial officer in good stead. And his conduct as a Magistrate Judge has confirmed the wisdom of our collective decision.
Because the very nature of the judging process is that one party's victory is the other party's loss, what goes with the territory is the losing side's unhappiness with the judge's decision--and sometimes with the judge as well. But that does not support a charge of unfairness on the judge's part, and nothing in this Court's experience with Magistrate Judge Martin lends credence to such a charge against him. What occurs to this Court instead in response to White's complaints is the thought conveyed in Matthew 7:3:
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in my brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
In sum, this Court declines to take any action with respect to White's letter. In particular, it declines White's request that concludes her letter:
In lew (sic) of sanctions, I would request a meeting with you and Atty. McDuffie in your chambers to discuss these issues.
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Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge