IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

EASTERN DIVISION

ANGELA REID, etc., )

)

Plaintiff, )

)

v. ) No. 12 C 3307

)

OFFICER PAUL MALETICH #222, )

et al., )

)

Defendant. )

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

This past month has found this Court submerged under a sea

of paper stemming from an extraordinary number of bulky motions

for temporary restraining orders, for Fed. R. Civ. P. (“Rule”) 56

motions for summary judgment and for a host of other documentrich filings. As a result, this past weekend’s effort to dig

through some accumulated documents uncovered the earlier-filed

(July 5) Answer by the City of Calumet City and two of its police

officers to the Complaint brought against them by Angela Reid as

best friend of her daughter Lakeya Reid. Better late than never,

though, for a number of problematic aspects of that pleading

require defense counsel to return to the drawing board.

First, Answer ¶¶4 and 5 impermissibly state that various of

the allegations in the corresponding Complaint paragraphs “are

legal conclusions for which no answer is required.” That is of

course nonsense--after all, what are more quintessentially legal

conclusions than the existence of jurisdiction and the propriety

of venue? Yet defense counsel had no difficulty in admitting
those allegations in Answer ¶¶1 and 2 (relatedly, see App’x ¶2 to

State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Riley, 199 F.R.D. 276, 278

(N.D. Ill. 2001)).

Next, defense counsel begin Answer ¶9 by denying not what is

asserted in Complaint ¶9’s initial allegation, but an improperly

revised version of that allegation. That may or may not be

creative, but it certainly has no place in a pleading.

Finally, the paragraphs of the Answer itself are followed by

a group of asserted affirmative defenses (“ADs”) that flout the

underlying concept of Fed. R. Civ. P. (“Rule”) 8(c) and the

caselaw construing and applying that Rule--see also App’x ¶5 to

State Farm. Here are some of the flaws in the ADs:

1. AD 1, which is the equivalent of a Rule 12(b)(6)

motion, is simply dead wrong. When the Complaint

allegations are accepted as true, as any AD requires,

defendants’ AD is bankrupt. It is stricken.

2. As to AD 2, any notion of laches appears absurd

when directed at a lawsuit that was filed a bit less than a

year after the May 2011 incident that gave rise to the

Complaint. And just how the “applicable statute of

limitations” can enter the picture is a mystery. AD 2 is

also stricken.

3. As for AD 3, where as here the plaintiff’s claims

will require a trial of the disputed facts to determine

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whose version of the events is to be credited, the Supreme

Court’s teaching is that a qualified immunity defense is not

in play. AD 3 is stricken as well.

4. As to AD 4, the invocation of the Illinois statute

that it cites is inconsistent with the Complaint’s

allegations of wilful and wanton misconduct. Again the AD

is stricken.

5. Finally, ADs 5 and 6 are also totally--and

impermissibly--at odds with the Complaint’s allegations. 

Those ADs must bite the dust too.

Accordingly all six of the ADs are stricken. If defense counsel

wishes to persist in asserting any AD in the revised pleading

that is called for hereafter, it must be advanced with an

appropriate fleshing out that explains the basis for and the

viability of such a defense.

To avoid piecemeal pleadings that would require a reader to

flip back and forth between two partial responsive pleadings, the

entire present Answer (including its ADs) is stricken, but with

leave of course being granted to file a self-contained Amended

Answer on or before August 15, 2012. All of that said, it is to

be hoped that the passel of total denials with which the present

Answer is packed have more objective good faith to support them

(see Rule 11(b)) than the portions dealt with in this opinion.

Meanwhile, no charge is to be made to defendants by their

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counsel for the added work and expense incurred in correcting

counsel’s errors. Defendants’ counsel are ordered to apprise

their clients to that effect by letter, with a copy to be

transmitted to this Court’s chambers as an informational matter

(not for filing).

________________________________________

Milton I. Shadur

Senior United States District Judge

Date: July 31, 2012

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