Online filing snafu right before deadline merits new chance

Trial Notebook

By Steven P. Garmisa

Hoey & Farina

Posted April 26, 2018 1:24 PM

Echoing the admonition that lawyers who “wait until the last minute to comply with a deadline are playing with fire,” Spears v. City of Indianapolis, 74 F.3d 153 (7th Cir. 1996), U.S. District Judge Robert M. Dow Jr. rejected all of Draga Cairone’s arguments for a one-day extension (to June 6, 2017) of the two-year statute of limitations for her complaint against McHenry County College for allegedly depriving her of her due process rights and violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. Yet Cairone …

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Lawyer erred on personal representative after learning defendant was dead

Answering a question certified for immediate appeal in a case where the plaintiff didn’t know the defendant was dead when the lawsuit was filed, the Illinois Appellate Court concluded that the maneuver used by plaintiff’s attorney to rectify the problem — having his secretary appointed as “personal representative” of the decedent’s estate under Sec. 13-209(c) of the Code of Civil Procedure and then naming her as defendant in an amended complaint — was the wrong move.
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