EAST ST. LOUIS – Defendants in a federal suit challenge an order of Chief 20th Circuit Judge Andrew Gleeson, who changed the filing date after they removed the suit from St. Clair County.
They’ve asked Chief U.S. District Judge Nancy Rosenstengel to declare his order void and dismiss the suit as untimely under a statute of limitations.
Auto body repairman Wesley Huff of Collinsville filed the suit against former partners Charles Binkley, Eric Stokes, and Andy Clawson.
Huff resigned from the group on March 31, 2015.
His lawyer Sean Cronin of Belleville alleged unjust enrichment, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, fraudulent inducement, and conspiracy.
He also alleged violation of federal racketeering law.
A court clerk stamped the complaint on April 7.
The four men had litigated the dispute for three years in Missouri, and Huff lost.
On April 10, St. Louis County Circuit Judge Ellen Ribaudo ordered him to pay Binkley, Stokes, and Clawson more than $700,000.
On May 12, in Illinois, defense counsel Shaun Broeker removed Huff’s suit from St. Clair County to district court.
He asserted federal jurisdiction over the racketeering claim and moved to dismiss the suit as retaliation for the Missouri judgment.
He claimed a limit on Huff’s claims expired March 31, five years after he resigned.
On May 18, in Missouri, Cronin filed notice that Huff would appeal.
He claimed Ribaudo made 21 errors.
On June 1, in Illinois, Huff amended the complaint to drop the racketeering claim.
Binkley, Stokes, and Watson again moved to dismiss, claiming time expired.
Broeker wrote that Huff’s choice of venue provided “further evidence of the retaliatory and frivolous nature of this lawsuit.”
He wrote that the partnership’s operating agreement provided venue in circuit courts of St. Louis city, St. Louis County, and Madison County, or district courts of Eastern Missouri and Southern Illinois.
St. Clair County “has no connection to this lawsuit at all, except plaintiff’s counsel is located across the street from the courthouse,” Broeker wrote.
From that courthouse the next day, Gleeson entered an order deeming the complaint filed on March 30.
“The circuit clerk’s office wrongly rejected this case originally sent through the Odyssey efile system,” Gleeson wrote. “Upon it being refiled it should have been file stamped with the original date.”
On June 9, Cronin moved to remand Huff’s suit to St. Clair County.
He claimed federal jurisdiction ended when the racketeering claim ended.
“All claims are Illinois state law claims,” Cronin wrote.
He wrote that the filing date was “incorrectly and inadvertently” stamped April 7, and was subsequently corrected by the circuit clerk.
Rosenstengel denied the remand motion on Aug. 7, stating she noted the conduct of the parties and the pending claims.
She found the Seventh Circuit gave her wide latitude to exercise jurisdiction over state law claims “when the plaintiff showed signs of playing games.”
“Defendants have maintained that the suit was filed in retaliation for the judgment entered against plaintiff Huff,” Rosenstengel wrote.
“To remand would serve to prolong the suit and give plaintiff another shot on the pending claims.”
Cronin opposed the motion to dismiss on Aug. 21, stating Huff indisputably filed the suit within five years of Huff’s resignation.
He acknowledged that defendants didn’t know that when they filed the motion.
He wrote that they knew the official filing date since the order was entered and didn’t amend their motion accordingly.
Broeker, replying on Aug. 27, didn’t find it indisputable.
“The original complaint has a filing stamp that proves this lawsuit was filed on April 7, 2020,” Broeker wrote.
“Plaintiff knows this means the claims were filed seven days after the statute of limitations expired.
“That’s exactly why plaintiff’s counsel ran to the St. Clair County courthouse, a month after defendants removed this action and a month after defendants raised this issue in their original motion to dismiss, to make an ex parte request to the Illinois state court to change the filing date.”
Ex parte means a lawyer talks to a judge without the other lawyer present.
“Not only was this ex parte appearance wholly improper, it was also futile because any post removal action taken by an Illinois state court is null and void.”
Circuit Clerk Kahalah Clay said on Aug. 31 that Huff filed the suit on March 30.
"A filing fee must be paid in order for a civil case to be accepted," she said.
She said information vendor Tyler Technologies didn’t show that Huff paid a filing fee.
"Our office should have been able to see it but due to the Tyler system error we could not," she said.
"As a result, Huff's filing was incorrectly rejected."
Tyler Technologies provided a statement to the Record:
"A routine updating of the software for St. Clair County led to an issue with how the system displayed payments for filing fees to the reviewing clerks in the St. Clair County Circuit Clerk’s Office," the statement reads. "The issue was quickly corrected.
"In 2016, the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts selected Tyler's software to provide a statewide e-filing system, eFileIL™, which serves the Illinois Supreme Court, Illinois Appellate Court, and 102 circuit courts throughout the state. In August 2020, the system handled nearly 500,000 filings from throughout the state."
A review of campaign contribution filings at the Illinois State Board of Elections shows that Cronin contributed $250 to Gleeson’s retention campaign in 2018.
He gave $250 each to circuit court candidates Heinz Rudolf, John O’Gara, and Christopher Kolker, and they won.
He gave $500 to appellate court candidate Kevin Hoerner of Belleville, who lost.
Cronin practices at Donovan Rose Nester.
The firm’s leader Michael Nester gave $500 each to Kolker, Rudolf, O’Gara, and Hoerner, and $200 for retention of Circuit Judge Zina Cruse.