Opinion ID: 2717394
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: a demand for the relief sought, which

Text: may include relief in the alternative or different types of relief. (continued...) 28 No. 13-1766 Section 2-622 says nothing about the contents of the actual complaint; it is only concerned with a pre-suit consultation and related attachments to the complaint. Illinois courts have held specifically that the affidavit and report required by section 2-622 are not to be considered parts of a plaintiff’s complaint. Garrison v. Choh, 719 N.E.2d 237, 240, 243–44 (Ill. App. Ct. 1999). Rule 8 and section 2-622 govern different aspects of commencing an action and may be enforced simultaneously without conflict. Rule 11 may be enforced consistently with section 2-622 as well. The relevant portion of Rule 11 provides: By presenting to the court a pleading, written motion, or other paper … an attorney … certifies that to the best of the person’s knowledge, information, and belief, … : (1) it is not being presented for any improper purpose, such as to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litiga- tion; (2) the claims, defenses, and other legal conten- tions are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modify- ing, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law; [and] 31 (...continued) Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a). No. 13-1766 29 (3) the factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, will likely have evidentiary support after a reason- able opportunity for further investigation or discovery … . Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b)(1)–(3). Section 2-622’s requirement that an attorney attach an affidavit and report to the complaint does not interfere with the ability of the attorney to certify the accuracy and legitimacy of that complaint. Accordingly, section 2-622 and Rule 11 may be applied simultaneously. Further, given the respective purposes of Rule 8, Rule 11 and section 2-622, it cannot be said that one of the Federal Rules occupies the field that section 2-622 aims to regulate and, therefore, must trump the state law. See Burlington N., 480 U.S. at 7. The purpose of section 2-622 is “to reduce the number of frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits that are filed and to eliminate such actions at an early stage.” Apa v. Rotman, 680 N.E.2d 801, 804 (Ill. App. Ct. 1997).32 It is designed to ensure that a complaint has “factual validity” and “reasonable merit.” Garrison, 719 N.E.2d at 243 (internal quotation marks omitted). By contrast, the purpose of Rule 8 is to provide a defendant with fair notice of the claims against him. Vicom, Inc. v. Harbridge Merch. Servs., Inc., 20 F.3d 771, 775 (7th Cir. 1994); see also Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). Even after Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009), which clarified that a complaint must state a claim for relief that is 32 See also Avakian v. Chulengarian, 766 N.E.2d 283, 294 (Ill. App. Ct. 2002); Tucker v. St. James Hosp., 665 N.E.2d 392, 396 (Ill. App. Ct. 1996). 30 No. 13-1766 “plausible” on its face, we have emphasized that plausibility is required “in order to assure that a pleading suffices to give effective notice to the opposing party,” not in order to evaluate the veracity of the pleaded facts or the ultimate merits of the plaintiff’s claim. Alexander v. United States, 721 F.3d 418, 422 (7th Cir. 2013); cf. Skinner v. Switzer, 131 S. Ct. 1289, 1296 (2011) (noting that a complaint need not show whether a plaintiff will ultimately prevail). Thus the purposes of Rule 8 (fair notice) and section 2-622 (eliminating frivolous claims) are different enough that the rules comfortably may coexist in diversity cases. With respect to Rule 11, the Supreme Court has stated that its “central purpose … is to deter baseless filings in district court and thus, consistent with the Rules Enabling Act’s grant of authority, streamline the administration and procedure of the federal courts.” Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U.S. 384, 393 (1990). “Rule 11 imposes a duty on attorneys to certify that they have conducted a reasonable inquiry and have determined that any papers filed with the court are well grounded in fact, legally tenable, and ‘not interposed for any improper purpose.’” Id. (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 11 (1989)). Because Rule 11 is about attorney conduct—not about (or only incidentally about) the merits of a plaintiff’s case—it has a sufficiently separate purpose from section 2-622 that no conflict exists between them. Our prior cases support the conclusion that Rules 8 and 11 and section 2-622 may be enforced simultaneously in diversity No. 13-1766 31 cases.33 In Hines v. Elkhart General Hospital, 603 F.2d 646, 647 (7th Cir. 1979), we held that an Indiana law requiring a medical malpractice plaintiff to obtain the opinion of a medical review panel prior to initiating a court action did not conflict with any federal rules and should be enforced in federal courts sitting in diversity. Indeed, we have noted that, in diversity actions, application of state law is usually indicated where the state rule may seem procedural but “is limited to a particular substantive area.” S.A. Healy Co. v. Milwaukee Metro. Sewerage Dist., 60 F.3d 305, 310 (7th Cir. 1995) (collecting cases). Such a limitation, we have said, indicates a “state’s intention to influence substantive outcomes.” Id. Here, Illinois has limited section 2-622 to cases involving medical or other healing art malpractice. We therefore may infer that Illinois’s “goals are substantive” and would be thwarted if parties having access to a federal court under diversity jurisdiction could thereby exempt themselves from the compulsory requirement. See id. Together, Hines and Healy require the result we reach today: that section 2-622 must be applied by federal courts sitting in diversity. 33 This conclusion also is consistent with the few of our sister circuits that have addressed this precise issue. See, e.g., Liggon-Redding v. Estate of Sugarman, 659 F.3d 258, 261–65 (3d Cir. 2011) (finding no conflict between Rule 8 or Rule 11 and a Pennsylvania statute requiring a “certificate of merit” to be filed in professional malpractice claims); Chamberlain v. Giampapa, 210 F.3d 154, 158–61 (3d Cir. 2000) (finding no conflict between Rule 8 or Rule 9 and a similar New Jersey law); cf. Littlepaige v. United States, 528 F. App’x 289, 292–93 (4th Cir. 2013) (holding that a North Carolina rule requiring an expert certification in a medical malpractice case applied in a Federal Tort Claims Act case sounding in medical malpractice brought in federal court). 32 No. 13-1766 In sum, section 2-622 may be applied in diversity cases without running afoul of either Rule 8 or Rule 11. Therefore, the district court properly dismissed the plaintiffs’ wrongful death claim against HPL because the plaintiffs had failed to attach the required affidavit and report.