Slabon v. Sanchez
| Decision Date | 13 September 2021 |
| Docket Number | 15-cv-8965 |
| Parties | ANDREW SLABON, Plaintiff, v. ANGELO R. SANCHEZ, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
Plaintiff Andrew Slabon called 911 after he arrived home and discovered his mother on the floor, unresponsive. The police and paramedics answered the call, and did what they could. But they could not revive her.
Slabon meanwhile, was having a hard time. While the paramedics attempted to resuscitate his mother, Slabon was flailing around, screaming uncontrollably. A police officer had to place him in handcuffs and remove him from the room because he was getting in the way. When he heard the news of his mother's passing, he started talking about killing himself. The police decided that Slabon posed a risk of self harm, so they took him to the hospital involuntarily.
After arriving in the emergency room, things went from bad to worse. He continued to make suicidal comments, asking to be euthanized. He wouldn't lay down. He threatened to spit on the nurse. And he continued to scream, yelling expletives and racial slurs at the medical staff.
Slabon then kicked the nurse. The blow sent her flying backwards and she crashed into the cabinetry. So they arrested him. The blow landed Slabon two years in prison.
Slabon sued the police, the paramedics, and the medical professionals, as well as the City and the hospital. The sixth amended complaint included a dozen claims against more than a dozen defendants. Years of discovery followed.
Defendants ultimately moved for summary judgment. They supported their motions with admissible evidence, but Slabon did not respond with any evidence of his own. They also pointed out that many of Slabon's claims are time barred. A personal injury claim against a state employee has a one-year statute of limitations under Illinois law, but Slabon filed suit more than 18 months after the incident.
For the reasons stated below, the motions for summary judgment are granted.
Before drilling down into the facts, and summarizing the evidentiary record, the Court must call attention to Slabon's failure to comply with the Rules.
Defendants filed motions for summary judgment. At the summary judgment stage, allegations no longer carry the day. The non-movant must present evidence showing that there is a genuine issue of material fact. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 250 (1986). That is, in response to a properly-supported motion for summary judgment, the non-movant must come forward with evidence that demonstrates a need for a trial.
The City Defendants - the City of Chicago, plus Officer Sanchez Officer Cummens, Officer Adamski, Detective O'Brien Paramedic Bishop, and Paramedic Strong - supported their motion for summary judgment by filing a statement of material facts under Local Rule 56.1. See City Defs.' Statement of Facts (Dckt. No. 362). Defendant Presence Our Lady of Resurrection Medical Center (“the Hospital”) also filed a statement of material facts as required by the Local Rules. See Def. Presence Our Lady of Resurrection Medical Center's Statement of Facts (“Def. POLR's Statement of Facts”) (Dckt. No. 355). Defendants submitted supporting evidence, too.
By filing for summary judgment, and offering admissible evidence, Defendants put the ball in Slabon's court. Slabon needed to come forward with evidence of his own, and thus demonstrate that there is a genuine issue of material fact. In other words, when Defendants offered evidence of “X, ” Slabon needed to offer evidence of “not-X.”
In the alternative, Slabon needed to show that Defendants' evidence was inadequate. That is, Slabon needed to demonstrate why Defendants' evidence does not entitle them to summary judgment. Slabon needed to show why “X” would not entitle Defendants to judgment as a matter of law, even if “X” is true. Or, Slabon needed to show that the evidence of “X” offered by Defendants does not support “X” at all.
But an expression of disagreement is not enough. And here, that's all there is.
Slabon responded, but he did not comply with the Federal Rules or the Local Rules. Slabon filed a number of different documents in response to each motion. They are difficult to navigate.
Specifically, in response to the motion filed by the City Defendants, Slabon filed: (1) a five-page Plaintiffs' [sic][1] 56.1(b) Amended Response Brief to Defendants' City Motion for Summary Judgment; (2) a six-page Plaintiffs' 56.1(b) Amended Response Statement to Defendants' City Motion for Summary Judgment; and (3) a seven-page Plaintiffs' 56.1(b) Amended Response to Defendants' City's Motion for Summary Judgment. See Dckt. No. 392.
In response to the Hospital's motion for summary judgment, Slabon filed: (1) a one-page Plaintiffs' 56.1(b) Response Brief to Defendants' POLR Motion for Summary Judgment; (2) a three-page Plaintiffs' 56.1 Response Memorandum of Law to Defendants' POLR Motion for Summary Judgment; (3) a four-page Plaintiffs' 56.1(b) Response to Defendants' POLR Motion for Summary Judgment; (4) a four-page Plaintiffs' 56.1(b) Response Statement to Defendants' POLR Motion for Summary Judgment. See Dckt. No. 371.[2]
From the names of the documents themselves, it may not be obvious which document is the brief, and which document is the response to the statement of facts. They blur together. Figuring out what each document is - and what it responds to - takes some doing. The blurring comes from the similar names, and from the fact that Slabon filed each collection together (that is, the three responses to the City Defendants appear in one pdf file, and the same for the Hospital).
Slabon's responses to the statements of facts appear near the end of each collection. So, the document entitled “Plaintiffs' [sic] 56.1(b) Amended Response to Defendants' City's Motion for Summary Judgment” is Slabon's response to the City Defendants' statement of facts. See Pl.'s Resp. to City Defs.' Statement of Facts (Dckt. No. 392, at 13-19 of 19). And the document entitled “Plaintiffs' [sic] 56.1(b) Response to Defendants' POLR Motion for Summary Judgment” is Slabon's response to the Hospital's statement of facts. See Pl.'s Resp. to Def. POLR's Statement of Facts (Dckt. No. 371, at 5-8 of 12).
Two problems jump off the page. First, Slabon did not comply with the procedural requirements for how to respond to a statement of facts. That failure to comply is most glaring in his response to the City's statement of facts. He did not give a paragraph-by-paragraph response. See Pl.'s Resp. to City Defs.' Statement of Facts (Dckt No. 392, at 13-19 of 19).
The Local Rules require movants to file a statement of facts that “consist[s] of concise numbered paragraphs.” See Local Rule 56.1(d)(1). The response by the non-movant “must consist of numbered paragraphs corresponding to the numbered paragraphs” in the movant's Rule 56.1 statement of material facts. See Local Rule 56.1(e)(1). Also, “[e]ach paragraph shall set forth the text of the asserted fact . . . and then shall set forth the response.” Id. That way, it is easy for the Court and the parties to see the facts from one side, and the response from the other.
Instead of complying, Slabon went off road. The statement of facts from the City Defendants includes 68 paragraphs, which appear under six headings. See City Defs.' Statement of Facts (Dckt. No. 362). So, for example, the first heading is “Description of the Parties and Basis of Jurisdiction, ” the second is “Plaintiff's 911 Call to Police, ” the third is “Plaintiff's Transport to the Hospital, ” the fourth is “Plaintiff's Battery of Nurse Benjamin and Subsequent Arrest, ” and so on. Id. The paragraphs appear under those headings. So paragraphs one to five appear under heading one (“Description of the Parties and Basis of Jurisdiction”), paragraphs six to thirty-two appear under heading two (“Plaintiff's 911 Call to Police”), and so on. Id.
Slabon did not give 68 responses to those 68 paragraphs. Instead, his response includes 17 different paragraphs, or maybe 17 different headings. See Pl.'s Resp. to City Defs.' Statement of Facts (Dckt. No. 392, at 13-19 of 19).[3] The first four correspond to the headings of the Rule 56.1 statement by the City Defendants (e.g., “Plaintiff's 911 Call to Police”). But under each heading, a stream of sentences flow, from one to another, without any paragraph numbers. The text includes no markers tying the sentences to the sentences in the Rule 56.1 statement.
The sentences lack any mooring to the City Defendant's statement of facts. Nothing ties the response to the statements from the Defendants, so it is difficult to see what, exactly, Slabon is responding to. The sentences just float together, tied to nothing.
By the look of things, the response is incomplete, too. For example, the second section of the City Defendant's Rule 56.1 statement includes 27 paragraphs (that is, paragraphs six to thirty-two appear under heading two, entitled “Plaintiff's 911 Call to Police”). See City Defs.' Statement of Facts, at ¶¶ 6-32 (Dckt. No. 362). But in response, Slabon gave only eight responses to those 27 paragraphs. See Pl.'s Resp. to City Defs.' Statement of Facts (Dckt. No. 392, at 13-14 of 19).
So, Slabon did not respond to everything. And the responses that do appear are user-unfriendly, because the paragraph numbers do not correspond to the paragraph numbers of the City Defendants' statement of facts. It is difficult to line up the facts and the responses, and find a match. Reviewing a statement of facts under Rule 56.1 should not require a judicial version of “go fish.”
Slabon's response to the Hospital's statement...
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