Williams v. State of Illinois

Dist. Ct. did not err in dismissing for want of prosecution plaintiff’s section 1983 action, where plaintiff failed to serve any defendant within 15 months after filing said action. Record showed that nothing had occurred with lawsuit in first 13 months, although plaintiff had explained that defendant-university had stymied his efforts to serve appropriate defendants by failing to provide names and addresses of its employees, and defendant did nothing in following two months to serve any defendants, including governmental defendants. Moreover, Dist. Ct. did not err in treating plaintiff’s motion to reconsider dismissal under Rule 59(e) as motion to vacate dismissal order under Rule 60(b), where plaintiff’s motion was filed one day after applicable 28-day deadline for filing Rule 59(e) motions. Also, Rule 6(d) did not provide plaintiff with three-day extension of time for filing Rule 59(e) motion to reconsider, even though plaintiff had received notice of dismissal by mail.