ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
    October
    6,
    1988
    RIVERSIDE LABORATORIES,
    )
    Petitioner,
    v.
    )
    PCB 87-62
    )
    ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL
    )
    PROTECTION AGENCY,
    )
    Respondent.
    DISSENTING OPINION
    (by M. Nardulli):
    The Motion for Leave
    to File Instanter filed by the Attorney
    General Office in the above captioned case should be denied for
    failure
    to provide sufficient
    reason why the filing could not
    have been accomplished on time or why a prior
    request for
    extension of time could not have been filed.
    This motion
    is
    indicative of a troublesome,
    and seemingly increasing,
    trend
    in
    the practice before the Board to disregard the briefing schedule
    and assume that any motion
    to file instanter will automatically
    be granted by the Board.
    This practice of granting leave to file
    instanter, without requiring a showing of sufficient cause of
    delay,
    is
    a contributing factor
    to the Board’s problems of
    controlling its docket and adjudicating matters in a timely
    manner.
    In the present case,
    a briefing schedule was adopted, and
    agreed to by the Agency’s attorney at the hearing on July 14,
    1988.
    The schedule required the Agency to file its response
    brief by September
    23,
    1988.
    Instead the Agency’s brief was
    filed on September
    28,
    1988 accompanied by a motion to file
    instanter.
    The Assistant Attorney General’s only supporting
    reason for filing
    the brief
    five days late is that she was not at
    work on September
    21,
    1988.
    The explanation that the Board
    is
    asked
    to accept for late filing
    is that because the Assistant
    Attorney General missed one day of work during the eight week
    period allotted
    to prepare her brief, she
    is somehow justified to
    file the brief five days late.
    The Board’s granting of this
    motion also requires it
    to ignore the fact the Assistant Attorney
    General probably was aware of the fact that she would be away
    from work on September 21 when she agreed to the briefing
    schedule and also requires the Board
    to not question why the
    moving party did not show the courtesy of filing
    a motion for
    extension
    of time before the brief was due.
    This type of seemingly presumptuous and disrespectful
    attitude has become all too prevalent among practitioners before
    the Board.
    The Board must begin
    to realize the dangerous
    93—2 1
    —2—
    precedence
    it could establish by allowing itself
    to be perceived
    as
    a rubber stamp for any motion
    to file instanter.
    The failure
    to require sufficient cause
    for late filing will make
    it
    increasingly difficult
    to deny late filings when
    it
    is necessary
    to do so
    to control and expedite our decision process.
    I,
    therefore, respectfully dissent in this matter.
    I, Dorothy M.
    Gunn, Clerk of
    the Illinois Pollution Control
    Board, hereby certify that the above Dissentin
    0 inion was
    submitted on the
    7~7~
    day of _______________________
    1988.
    Mf-fthael L. Nardulli
    ~
    ~.
    Dorothy M. c~inn,Clerk
    Illinois Pollution Control Board
    93—22

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