Just more than five weeks ago, with great fanfare, the City of Chicago announced that it was suing Jussie Smollett, an actor in a show I never watched, seeking to recover costs incurred by the Chicago Police Department in investigating a crime reported by Smollett that never happened.
The filing of the suit garnered national headlines (e.g., CNN's coverage, linked here). Locally, a number of media outlets (e.g., WGN-TV) even provided a link to the City's entire Complaint (still accessible as of this posting).
But the copy of the Complaint provided for the press was not file-stamped.
That's not necessarily surprising, inasmuch as a document submitted for efiling on Day 1 may not actually be accepted until Day 2. But that's a totally different scandal.
Nevertheless, if the docket number of the case might was not available when the story was first posted, it became available eventually, and the story could have been updated to provide the fact that the docket number of the City's case against Mr. Smollett is 19 L 3898.
With that slight amendment, anyone interested could follow the progress of that suit from the comfort of one's home or office.
Because how this suit proceeds, or not, may provide an important signal about the new Mayor's pledges of reform.
The incoming mayor has already given a very politic answer regarding the fate of this suit: She has said that this case will not be a "priority" for her administration.
That may mean it will be quietly dropped at the first opportunity.
However, the City of Chicago has enormous problems, from potholes (merely the most obvious signs of our crumbling infrastructure) to pensions, from systemic corruption to skyrocketing fees and taxes, and from TIF reform to the glaring need for a deep, detailed, forensic accounting of every dollar spent, or misspent, these past 30 years or so. And also police reform, violence reduction, crime increases, the restoration of City mental health services, the precipitous decline of the City's middle class, the surging cost of living. Any or all of these may be rightly said to be greater 'priorities' for the new mayor than one Law Division case against an actor who has been fired from a now-cancelled series.
Therefore, even if Mayor Lightfoot instructs incoming Corporation Counsel Mark A. Flessner to pursue Smollett with the same pitiless remorse with which Jauvert pursued Jean Valjean, the case of City v. Smollett would not be a 'priority' for the new administration. The new mayor need not ever hear of it again -- and Mr. Smollett might never hear the end of it.
The first status hearing in the Smollett case is June 3 at 9:00 a.m. before Judge James E. Snyder.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile, if you're also wondering about the suit by the Osundairo brothers against Smollett's Los Angeles-based lawyers, Tina Glandian, Mark Geragos, and their firm, Geragos & Geragos, that case is pending a little further south on Dearborn Street under docket number 19 C 2727. As of Saturday, none of the defendants had yet appeared in that case.
I wish media outlets would remember to include docket numbers in any story concerning civil litigation.
Will Sheila "I Wanna Be State's Attorney" O'Brien be seeking to have Judge Snyder recuse himself from this one too? If so, on what basis? Careful Sheila O, your motives are as transparent as your "values."
ReplyDelete