a eR hisses

matters.

GRI’s Answer $14 provides another example of impermissible
pleading, this time in two respects. For one thing, no pleader
can leave its opponent and the court in the dark by employing the
locution of “den [ying] any allegations that are contrary to the
language contained in” a cited document, without identifying the
assertedly faithless allegations. And that is compounded by the
equally impermissible statement that a document “speaks for
itself”--see App. 93 of State Farm v. Riley, 2001 WL 185486.

This recital of the numerous pleading flaws in the existing
Answers will stop at this point. Again it is after all counsel’s
job, and not this Court’s, to perform the work called for by Rule
8(b) in the fashion compelled by Rule 11. Instead all three
existing Answers are physically stricken from the court file, but
with leave granted to defense counsel to file, in this Court's
chambers on or before May 3, 2001, a single consolidated Amended
Answer on behalf of all three defendants.?

Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge

Date: April 24, 2001

? No charge is to be made to defendants by their counsel for

the added work and expense incurred in correcting counsel’s own
errors. Defense counsel are ordered to apprise their clients to
that effect by letter, with copies to be transmitted to this
Court's chambers as an informational matter (not for filing).

4


corresponding incorporation by reference of the answers (in -

this instance non-answers) to the same FAC paragraphs.

3. Hence each defendant has wholly failed to answer
various paragraphs of the FAC that are, both in fact and
expressly, directed against him or it. Defense counsel’s
self-determination is thus not only lacking in authority but
is outright wrong.

As might perhaps have been expected from such careless
inattention, there are other flaws in each Answer that require
correction. For example, there is no way in which GRI and its
counsel can, in the exercise of the objective good faith demanded
by Rule 11, deny all of the allegations in FAC 98--several of the
allegations there (for example, certainly the fourth and last
sentences and perhaps the third) almost surely ought to be
admitted. In like manner, it is highly doubtful that GRI can
conscientiously deny (as it purports to do) virtually all of the
allegations in FAC 9§9, 10 and 11.

It is not the role of this Court to do counsel’s job in that
regard, and this opinion does not attempt to do so by providing
chapter and verse as to all of the inappropriate denials. Instead
this Court expects that defendants’ Amended Answer will be far
more meticulous in specifying exactly which allegations of the FAC
are and which are not being put into issue, thus avoiding needless

time and effort on Azza’s part in having to prove undisputed



6 pinute OF8eFForn (06/97)
United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois
Name of Assigned Judge ‘ Sitting Judge if Other
or Magistrate Judge Milton I. Shadur than Assigned Judge
CASE NUMBER 01C518 DATE 4/24/2001
CASE Azza International Corp. vs. Gas Research Institute, et al
TITLE
Un the following box (a) indicate the party filing the motion, ¢.g., plaintiff, defendant, 3rd party plaintiff, and (b) state briefly the nature
MOTION: of the motion being presented]
DOCKET ENTRY: 7
qd) Qo Filed motion of [ use listing in “Motion” box above.]
(2) o Brief in support of motion due :
@) a Answer brief to motion due . Reply to answer brief due.
(4) QO Ruling/Hearing on _ set for at
(5) a Status hearing[held/continued to] [set for/re-set for] on set for at
(6) Oo Pretrial conference[held/continued to} (set for/re-set for] on set for at :
(7) Oo Trial[set for/re-set for] on at
(8) Oo [Bench/Jury trial] [Hearing] held/continued to at
(9) Oo This case is dismissed [with/without] prejudice and without costs[by/agreement/pursuant to]
COFRCP4(m) (General Rule 21 CIFRCP41(@)\(1) OO FRCP41(a)(2).
ao) «=x [Other docket entry] Enter Memorandum Opinion and Order. All three existing Answers are
physically stricken from the court file, but with leave granted to defense counsel to file, in this Court’s
chambers on or before May 3, 2001, a single consolidated Amended Answer on behalf of all three
defendants.
di) ff [For further detail see order attached to the original minute order.]
‘No notices required, advised in open court,
No notices required. number of notes
v | Notices mailed by judge’s staff. 200
Notified counsel by telephone. AP R24 i
Docketing to mail notices,
Mail AO 450 form. . étexeting depo initnls
Copy to judge/magistrate judge.
4nann001
courtroom S date sited notice
SN deputy’s sn
initials
Date/Lime received in
central Clerk's Office mailing deputy initials



IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION

DOCKETED

APR 2 4 2001

AZZA INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION,
Plaintiff,
Vv. No. 01 C 518

GAS RESEARCH INSTITUTE, et al.,

Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

All three defendants in this commercial lawsuit brought by

Azza International Corporation (“Azza”)--Gas Research Institute
(“GRI”), Jeffrey Savidge (“Savidge”) and Thomas Roose
(“Roose”) --are jointly represented by the same Chicago law firm.

Yet their common counsel have inexplicably filed three separate
Answers to Azza‘s First Amended Complaint (“FAC”) when one would
obviously do--and, indeed, would do better. And that is really
aggravated by the fact that defense counsel sought and were
granted an added four weeks to file a responsive pleading,
affording them plenty of opportunity to give the matter
appropriate thought.

Even apart from (1) the disrespect for the environment that
is signaled by that waste of paper plus (2) the substantially less
informative nature of such multiple pleadings (on the latter
score, it is of course far easier for Azza’s counsel and this
Court to identify any areas of divergence among the defendants

from a single answer than to be compelled to leaf back and forth

10


Lidia

among three pleadings), the Answers are deficient in several other
respects. For the reasons stated in this memorandum opinion and
order, all three Answers are ordered stricken from the files, to
be supplanted promptly by a single joint Amended Answer.

To begin with, each of the present pleadings does violence to

the mandate of Fed. R. Civ. P. (“Rule”) 8(b), which requires that
all Allegations in a complaint must be answered, denied or made
the subject of a deemed denial under the auspices of the second
sentence of that Rule, by declining to answer various allegations
on the premise that they “are not directed against this
Defendant .”? But no lawyer or party has the authority under Rule
8(b) to decide that is so--and even if such authority had been
granted by the Rule’s drafters {as it has not), that
characterization is plainly incorrect in this instance (as it
would almost always be for the same reason) :
1. Each count of the FAC that seeks relief against any
defendant begins by incorporating by reference the first 20
paragraphs of the FAC (see Count One q21, Count Two (24 and
Count Three 927, each part of a claim asserted against GRI,
and Count Four $30 and Count Five 435, each part of a claim
asserted against both Savidge and Roose).

2. Each defendant’s Answer matches that recital with a

+ Among numerous other instances, see, e.g., GRI’s Answer q5

and Savidge’s and Roose’s Answers q4.

2