IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

EASTERN DIVISION

OCEAN BEAUTY SEAFOODS, LLC, )

)

Plaintiff, )

)

v. ) No. 12 C 685

)

LANDSTAR RANGER, INC., et al., )

)

Defendants. )

MEMORANDUM ORDER

J. Attarian Trucking Co. (“Attarian”) has filed a Notice of

Removal (“Notice”) to bring this action from the Circuit Court of

Cook County to this District Court, with codefendant Landstar

Ranger, Inc. (“Landstar”) having consented to the timely removal. 

Because Landstar had been served with process in the state court

action more than a month before Attarian, the court filings

attached to the Notice included both the Complaint by Ocean

Beauty Seafoods, LLC (“Ocean Beauty”) and Landstar’s Answer

together with its affirmative defenses (“ADs”) and counterclaims. 

This memorandum order is occasioned by some problematic aspects

of that responsive pleading in federal pleading terms.

This Court should not of course be misunderstood as

criticizing Landstar’s counsel for their naturally having

followed state court pleading rules during the time before the

Notice removed this action to this District Court. Instead this 1

 No view is expressed here as to the propriety of the 1

pleading under such state court rules.

Case: 1:12-cv-00685 Document #: 7 Filed: 02/02/12 Page 1 of 3 PageID #:45
memorandum order is issued only because all of the litigants (and

the case generally) will be better served by a recasting of the

pleading to conform to federal standards, including those

dictated by this District Court’s LRs as well as the Federal

Rules of Civil Procedure (“Rules”). In those terms Landstar’s

counsel are directed to file a self-contained amended pleading

making the following changes:

1. LR 10.1 should be complied with, for that

facilitates a reader’s understanding, by reading only a

single pleading document, of just which of Ocean Beauty’s

allegations have been, and which have not been, placed in

issue by Landstar.

2. Disclaimers of the type contained in Answer ¶1 and

elsewhere should be revised to conform to Rule 8(b)(5) and

to eliminate the meaningless demand for “strict proof” as

well (in both those respects, see App’x ¶1 to State Farm

Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Riley, 199 F.R.D. 276, 278 (N.D. Ill.

2001)).

3. Answer ¶7’s purported admission that a document

“speaks for itself” is unacceptable--see App’x ¶3 to State

Farm.

4. AD 2 is a purely skeletal statement of one of the

ADs permitted by Rule 8(c), without conforming to the notice

pleading obligations incumbent on federal defendants as well

2

Case: 1:12-cv-00685 Document #: 7 Filed: 02/02/12 Page 2 of 3 PageID #:46
as federal plaintiffs. If Landstar wishes to preserve that

AD, it must be fleshed out rather than remaining in its

current conclusory form.

5. ADs 3 and 4 apparently seek to draw upon the state

law principles embodied in the Moorman Doctrine. If federal

law preempts state law as the Notice asserts, any such AD

must look instead to federal substantive principles.

Accordingly Landstar’s Answer and ADs (but not its

Counterclaims ) are stricken, with leave granted to replead. 2

Landstar’s self-contained Amended Answer and ADs are ordered to

be filed on or before February 17, 2012.

________________________________________

Milton I. Shadur

Senior United States District Judge

Date: February 2, 2012

 No view is expressed here either as to Landstar’s 2

Counterclaims against Attarian. Those may be left as is, pending

any response by Attarian.

3

Case: 1:12-cv-00685 Document #: 7 Filed: 02/02/12 Page 3 of 3 PageID #:47