Orland Park plans revised lawsuit
Village amending action against Pr itzker over COVID-19 restrictions
Orland Park plans to file an amended lawsuit against Gov. J.B. Pritzker challenging restrictions put in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to federal court filings.
The move comes after the village had been dealt a setback last month in the lawsuit, which was filed in mid-June.
Orland Park had been given a Sept. 2 deadline to file a response to the governor’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, instead filed notice of its plan to seek U.S. District Court Judge Andrea Wood’s approval to file the amended complaint. Wood gave Orland Park until Oct. 8 to do so.
In its motion, Orland Park said that since the lawsuit was originally filed, it and other plaintiffs in the case “have discovered additional relevant facts” and that there is also the potential “for additional parties to the litigation.”
In a response filed Sept. 3, attorneys for the Illinois attorney general, representing Pritzker, asked Wood to deny the village’s request and instead insist on a response to the governor’s motion to dismiss.
Attorneys criticized the village’s filing as “bare-bones” and that it “cryptically asserts” that the plaintiffs had allegedly uncovered new facts but doesn’t provide any details.
“They do not elaborate on why these facts and parties need to be added,” according to the governor’s response.
Other plaintiffs in the lawsuit include two village residents and the co-owner of an Orland Park business, The Brass Tap. The village’s lawfirm, Klein, Thorpe & Jenkins, is representing the plaintiffs.
The lawsuit alleges that stateimposed restrictions ordered by Pritzker in response to the pandemic violate the due process and equal protection clauses of the Constitution and that Pritzker overstepped his authority.
The lawsuit argues, in part, that Pritzker had “failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that public health is significantly endangered without” restrictions on businesses and residents.
Last month, the Illinois Supreme Court moved to transfer a Clay County legal challenge to Pritzker’s coronavirus-related orders by Republican state Rep. Darren Bailey to Sangamon County and consolidate it with other state court cases challenging Pritzker’s authority. Thecourt also declined the governor’s request that itweigh in on whether he has the power to issue continued emergency orders, leaving that to the lower court to decide.
A Clay County Circuit Court judge had, in July, ruled in Bailey’s case that the governor’s authority to issue emergency orders had ended.
While much of the state is in phase four of the governor’s reopening plan, tighter restrictions have been put back in place temporarily in some regions as state health officials look at data such as the percentage of coronavirus tests that come back positive, the number of people hospitalized for COVID-19 illnesses and the capacity of hospitals to take in new patients.
For example, Region 7, which takes in Will and Kankakee counties, was placed under stricter controls, lifted late last week, due to increases in the number of positive tests.
Bars and restaurants, for instance, had to suspend indoor service to customers during the two weeks the restrictionswere in place.
In an Aug. 1 ruling in the Orland Park lawsuit, Wood denied a motion by the village seeking a temporary restraining order aswell as a preliminary injunction to overturn a series of executive orders issued by the governor.
Wood ruled the village and other plaintiffs failed to showtheyhavebeenunduly harmed by the governor’s order and would have “a negligible likelihood of success” in pressing their claims.
As far as whether the governor overstepped his authority, Wood wrote that the governor “has sweeping powers in the event a disaster strikes all or part” of the state, and even if he did not properly interpret the lawit would not necessarily render his actions beyond his legal authority.”
Wood wrote the protective measures imposed since mid-March “have no apparent nefarious ulterior motive to restrain individual rights,” but that granting the request for preliminary injunction “would do extraordinary damage” to the state’s efforts to try to curb the spread ofCOVID-19.
In allowing Orland Park to revise its lawsuit, the judge set a deadline of Nov. 5 for the governor to respond, with a status hearing scheduled forNov. 13.