10-3301 Cardenas v. City of Chicago

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Civil Procedure
Service

Where plaintiffs did not diligently attempt to serve the defendant, nor request an extension, the court properly dismissed the case pursuant to Rule 4(m).

“Ultimately, the district court recognized its discretion in applying Rule 4(m), evaluated the circumstances of the Plaintiffs’ failure to serve Officer Gallegos, and determined that the Plaintiffs’ counsel had only himself to blame. If a district court ‘properly sets out the relevant law and makes no factual findings that are clearly erroneous, an abuse of discretion exists only if its decision was arbitrary and unreasonable.’ Troxell, 160 F.3d at 383.
The Plaintiffs have offered us ‘no reason to think that the district court was completely off base’ in deciding not to rely exclusively on the factors they propose. Id.

The district court could have excused the lack of timely service, but we cannot call its choice not to grant an extension unreasonable—especially given both that Plaintiffs’ counsel made no attempt to serve Officer Gallegos in the 483 days between removal and the filing of the motion to dismiss and also that another 42 days elapsed before counsel finally served the Office of Legal Affairs. Indeed, it strikes us as eminently reasonable to hold the Plaintiffs accountable for their unexplained inaction in the face of their crucial burden to timely serve Officer Gallegos with process. We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion by granting Officer Gallegos’s motion to dismiss.”

Affirmed.

10-3301 Cardenas v. City of Chicago

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Norgle, J., Kanne, J.

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