Ali v. City of Chicago

Dist. Ct. did not abuse its discretion in denying petitioning intervenor’s motion to intervene in plaintiff’s civil rights case, under circumstances where: (1) plaintiff alleged that his civil rights were violated when he was detained overnight on out-of-county warrant for another person who had same name and was not permitted to post bail; and (2) petitioning intervenor filed intervention motion on same day that plaintiff had stipulated to dismissal of his case without prejudice and with leave to reinstate case. Dist. Ct. could properly find that motion to intervene was untimely, since: (1) plaintiff had brought case as individual claim and had never alleged case as class action; (2) Dist. Ct. had previously rejected plaintiff’s attempt to bring class action arising out of police treatment of similarly-situated individuals; and (3) petitioning intervenor could not have otherwise relied on plaintiff to protect his interests in instant case so as to excuse instant delay in filing intervention motion, where plaintiff had not brought his case as class action.