EAST ST. LOUIS – Chief U.S. District Judge Nancy Rosenstengel did not accept an explanation from St. Clair County Circuit Clerk Kahalah Clay about a date that Chief Circuit Judge Andrew Gleeson changed on a lawsuit.
Rosenstengel denied a motion to strike a brief about it on Oct. 1, and wrote that she wouldn’t consider an affidavit Clay signed.
Collinsville body shop owner Wesley Huff filed the affidavit to show that electronic error produced an April 7 date on a March 30 complaint.
Huff seeks damages from former partners Charles Binkley, Eric Stokes, and Andy Clawson, all of Missouri.
He resigned from the partnership on March 31, 2015.
Last December, Binkley, Stokes, and Clawson won judgment in a suit against Huff in St. Louis County.
Huff’s lawyer Sean Cronin of Belleville filed the St. Clair County suit while St. Louis County Circuit Judge Ellen Ribaudo prepared an order awarding damages.
On April 10, she awarded about $700,000.
Binkley, Stokes, and Clawson removed Huff’s suit to district court in May, and moved to dismiss it.
Their lawyer Shaun Broeker claimed a statute of limitations ran out on March 31, the fifth anniversary of his resignation.
Gleeson changed the date on June 4, finding Clay’s office wrongly rejected the case through the electronic filing system.
Cronin opposed the motion to dismiss in August, claiming Huff indisputably sued within five years.
Broeker argued in a reply brief that the stamp proved the suit was filed April 7.
He asked for an order declaring Gleeson’s order void.
Cronin moved to strike the reply in September, with Clay’s affidavit as an exhibit.
Rosenstengel found the motion devolved into and acted as a surreply to the reply, which local rules never allowed.
“While it is true that reply briefs are disfavored, a motion to strike a reply is disfavored just as much, if not more, than the reply brief,” Rosenstengel wrote.
“That is particularly applicable in cases like this where the motion to strike does not serve a purpose in refining the issues or aiding in a more expeditious resolution of the case.”
She wrote that she could disregard an unwarranted reply without additional briefing but wouldn’t do so because of exceptional circumstances.
“Specifically, defendants assert that they sought to clarify legal and factual inaccuracies found in plaintiff’s response,” she wrote.
She wrote that she wouldn’t consider Clay’s affidavit in deciding the motion to dismiss.