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Equitable Estoppel

By: Derek Hawkins//October 28, 2019//

Equitable Estoppel

By: Derek Hawkins//October 28, 2019//

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7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: John Vergara, et al. v. City of Chicago, et al.

Case No.: 18-1266

Officials: MANION, SYKES, and BRENNAN, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Equitable Estoppel

John Vergara, Carlos Ruiz, and Jose Garcia filed a civil-rights lawsuit against the City of Chicago and Chicago Police Officers John Dal Ponte, Boonserm Srisuch, and Perry Nigro. The defendants moved to dismiss the suit as untimely. The plaintiffs asked the district judge to equitably estop the defendants from raising the limitations defense, claiming that the officers intimidated them into silence.

The judge dismissed the suit in a minute order saying she would later file an opinion explaining her reasons. The promised opinion came almost two years later, and the plaintiffs then appealed. Under the Rules of Appellate Procedure, however, entry of judgment for appeal purposes occurred 150 days after the judge’s minute order, see FED. R. APP. P. 4(a)(7)(A), and the 30-day time to file a notice of appeal ran from that date, see Walker v. Weatherspoon, 900 F.3d 354, 356 (7th Cir. 2018). The appeal was therefore woefully late.

The defendants noted the untimeliness problem in their docketing statement, but this filing too was quite late. Our circuit’s rules require the appellee to identify errors in the appellant’s docketing statement within 14 days. 7TH CIR. R. 3(c)(1); see Hamer v. Neighborhood Hous. Servs. of Chi., 897 F.3d 835, 839 (7th Cir. 2018). The defendants missed that deadline by about six months.

After disentangling this procedural web, we decline to dismiss the appeal. The defendants’ objection to the Rule 4(a) violation came too late under Circuit Rule 3(c)(1). But the suit is untimely, and our precedent forecloses the plaintiffs’ equitable estoppel theory. We affirm.

Affirmed

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Derek A Hawkins is trademark corporate counsel for Harley-Davidson. Hawkins oversees the prosecution and maintenance of the Harley-Davidson’s international trademark portfolio in emerging markets.

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