IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

WILLIAM AMOR,

Plaintiff,

v.

JOHN REID & ASSOCIATES, et al.,

Defendants.

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Case No. 20-cv-01444

Hon. John Z. Lee

Mag. J. Jeffrey I. Cummings 

PLAINTIFF’S REPLY TO DEFENDANT’S MOTION IN OPPOSITION 

TO PLAINTIFF’S MOTION TO APPOINT SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE 

Plaintiff submits this pleading in reply to Defendant Masokas’ Memorandum in 

Opposition to Plaintiff’s Motion to Appoint and Substitute Special Representative for Defendant 

Arthur T. Newey, Dkt. No. 26. In support of this motion, Plaintiff states: 

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

In September 1997, Plaintiff was wrongfully convicted of aggravated arson and murder.

This conviction was predicated on a false confession that was coerced by multiple people,

including the Individual Defendants to this action and several officers within the Naperville 

Police Department (“NPD”). Plaintiff spent over twenty-years in prison on these charges before 

having his conviction vacated and, at a retrial, being acquitted of all wrongdoing on February 21, 

2018. 

Plaintiff subsequently filed a complaint in federal court against the City of Naperville, 

NPD, and the aforementioned officers. See Amor v. Cross, et al., No. 1:18-cv-02523, Dkt. 1

(N.D. Ill. Apr. 9, 2018) (the “Naperville Case”). On February 18, 2020, Plaintiff filed a motion 

for leave to file an amended complaint and asked the Court to add several defendants to the suit, 

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including the Defendants in the present litigation. See id. at Dkt. 67. The Court denied Plaintiff’s 

motion on February 25, 2020, due to concerns that the existing defendants would be prejudiced 

by a soon pending discovery deadline. See id. at Dkt. 73. See also Dkt. 26, Ex. A, 8:19-23. Two 

days later, on February 27, 2020, Plaintiff filed his complaint in the instant case (the “Reid 

Case”). See Plaintiff’s Complaint, Dkt. No. 1. This Complaint contains federal and state law 

claims against defendants which were included in his proposed motion to amend the Naperville 

Case and which are, for all relevant purposes, identical to the those in the 2018 complaint in the 

Naperville Case.1 See Naperville Case, Dkt. 67, Ex. 1, 11-20; Reid Case, Dkt. 1, 10-18.

Plaintiff properly named as a Defendant to this suit the Estate of Arthur T. Newey, who 

along with others interrogated Plaintiff and coerced him into giving a false confession. Reid 

Case, Dkt. 1, 3-4. Plaintiff then sought, pursuant to 735 ILCS 5/13-209 to appoint a special 

representative for Mr. Newey’s estate for purposes of appointing a personal representative to 

defend Mr. Newey in this action. Reid Case, Dkt. 13. Plaintiff did so in order to facilitate the 

efficient progression of this litigation, without the need to re-open an estate for this same 

purpose. 

Defendant Masokas takes no issue with the underlying merits of Plaintiff’s request. His

sole argument in opposition to this motion is that Plaintiff’s claims are purportedly time-barred 

because they were filed more than two years after Mr. Amor’s criminal proceedings terminated 

in his favor. See Reid Case, Dkt. 26, 2 (“[Defendant] agrees that [the appointment of a special 

representative for Newey under Section 13-209(b)(2)] would be the correct procedure, if 

Plaintiff’s claims against Newey weren’t already barred.”) 

1 Both the complaint Plaintiff brought in 2018 and the Complaint in the instant case pled: several section 1983 

constitutional claims, a malicious prosecution claim, an intentionally inflection of emotional distress claim, a state 

law conspiracy claim, and a claim of respondeat superior. Plaintiff brought an indemnification claim against the 

City of Naperville in his earlier pled complaint that he did not bring in the instant case. 

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This argument is easily disposed of, however, because Plaintiff’s claims were tolled 

during the pendency of his motion for leave to amend the complaint in the Naperville Case, and 

thus were timely filed within the applicable statutory period in this action. As such, neither 

Plaintiff’s Complaint nor his Motion to Appoint and Substitute Special Representative is timebarred. With Defendant Masokas raising no other objections, this Court should grant Plaintiff’s 

motion so this case can move forward.2

ARGUMENT 

I. PLAINTIFF’S CLAIMS HAVE A TWO-YEAR STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS

Plaintiff brings several federal and state law claims in this case, including: various section 

1983 constitutional claims; a malicious prosecution claim, an intentional infliction of emotional 

distress claim, a state law conspiracy claim, and a claim of respondeat superior. See Reid Case, 

Dkt. 1, 10-18. Under applicable Illinois statutory and judicial law, each of these claims typically 

has a two-year statute of limitations period. See 735 ILCS 5/13-202 (providing a two-year statute 

of limitations period for malicious prosecution and personal injury torts); see also Ray v. Maher, 

662 F.3d 770, 772-73 (7th Cir. 2011) (applying the two-year statute of limitations period under 

735 ILCS 5/13-202 to section 1983 claims). 

In the instant case, Plaintiff’s statutory clock began to run on these claims on February 

21, 2018 – the day he was acquitted of his charges. See Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 489-

90 (1994) (“[A] section 1983 cause of action for damages attributable to an unconstitutional 

conviction or sentence does not accrue until the conviction or sentence has been invalidated.”). 

See also Brown v. City of Chicago, 2019 WL 4694685, at *5 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 26, 2019) (applying 

Heck to plaintiff’s Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment claims, holding that statute of limitations 

2 Counsel for Defendant John Reid & Associates appeared after Defendant Masokas’s response was filed. Defendant 

John Reid & Associates has taken no position on Plaintiff’s motion. 

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period did not accrue until plaintiff was acquitted of his charges). Absent any applicable tolling 

provisions, the limitations period would have ended on February 21, 2020.

II. THIS TIME PERIOD WAS TOLLED DURING THE PENDENCY OF HIS 

MOTION FOR LEAVE TO AMEND IN THE NAPERVILLE CASE

In this case, however, there is an applicable tolling provision. Under Seventh Circuit 

precedent, “the submission of a motion for leave to amend a complaint, properly accompanied by 

the proposed amended complaint providing notice of the substance of those amendments, tolls 

the statute of limitation” applicable to an action before the court until the court “renders its

decisions regarding the proposed amended complaint.” Moore v. State of Ind., 999 F.2d 1125, 

1131 (7th Cir. 1993). See also Williams-Guice v. Bd. of Educ. of City of Chicago, 45 F.3d 161, 

164-65 (7th Cir. 1995) (holding that the Plaintiff’s limitations period, which had been suspended 

pending a decision by the court on an application to proceed in forma pauperis, resumed running 

on the date of denial of the application). This means the statute of limitations period imposed on 

Plaintiff’s claims were paused from the day he submitted his motion for leave to amend his 

complaint in the Naperville Case until the court’s subsequent decision denying said motion. 

III. GIVEN THIS TOLLING, PLAINTIFF’S COMPLAINT WAS TIMELY FILED

AND THIS COURT SHOULD RULE ON THE MERITS OF PLAINTIFF’S 

MOTION

The timing works out as follows: Plaintiff filed his motion for leave to amend his 

complaint on February 18, 2020, three days prior to the end of the statute of limitations period on 

his claims. See Exhibit A, Naperville Case, Dkt. 67. The court denied his motion on February 

25, 2020. See Exhibit B, Naperville Case, Dkt. 73. Seven days were thus tolled from the 

limitations period. Only two days later, Plaintiff filed the Complaint in the instant case, pleading 

the same underlying claims against the same parties addressed in his motion for leave to amend. 

Reid Case, Dkt 1.

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Plaintiff filed his claims within the tolled statute of limitations, and thus his claims are 

not time-barred. Defendants do not address the tolling issue in their response, and have offered 

no other basis to deny Plaintiff’s motion. This Court therefore should address Plaintiff’s Motion 

to Appoint and Substitute Special Representative for Defendant Newey, Reid Case, Dkt. No. 13, 

on the merits.

CONCLUSION

For the reasons set forth above, and for the reasons stated in Plaintiff’s Motion to Appoint 

and Substitute Special Representative for Defendant Arthur T. Newey, Plaintiff respectfully 

requests the Court enter an order opposing a special representative to defend this action on behalf 

of the Estate of Arthur T. Newey. 

Respectfully submitted,

WILLIAM AMOR 

/s/ Mariah Garcia

One of Plaintiff’s Attorneys

Jon Loevy

Tara Thompson

Mariah Garcia 

LOEVY & LOEVY

311 N. Aberdeen St., 3rd Fl.

Chicago, IL 60607

(312) 243-5900

mariah@loevy.com

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

I hereby certify that on July 28, 2020, I filed the foregoing document using the Court’s 

CM/ECF system, which effected service on all counsel of record. 

/s/ Mariah Garcia

One of Plaintiff’s Attorneys

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