Orland Park drops lawsuit against Pritzker
Village filed federal complaint in June challenging governor’s statewide COVID-19 restrictions
Orland Park has dropped a federal lawsuit against Gov. J.B. Pritzker challenging restrictions put in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to court filings.
The village and other plaintiffs in the case had filed the complaint in mid-June, and last month told the judge overseeing the case it planned to file an amended lawsuit by this Thursday.
Theshort document filedTuesday did not give an explanation why the village decided to voluntarily dismiss the lawsuit.
Mayor Keith Pekau said Thursday that theVillage Board decided in a closed session following
Monday’s meeting to drop the case, but defended the village’s use of taxpayer money to pursue the litigation.
Orland Park had been given a Sept. 2 deadline to file a response to the governor’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, but instead filed notice of its plan to seek U.S. District Court Judge Andrea Wood’s approval to file the amended complaint.
In its motion, which the judge approved, Orland Park said since the lawsuit was originally filed it and other plaintiffs in the case “have discovered additional relevant facts” and that therewas also the potential “for additional parties to the litigation.”
In a response to Orland Park’s motion, filed Sept. 3, attorneys for the Illinois attorney general, representing Pritzker, askedWood to deny the village’s request and instead insist on a response to the governor’s motion to dismiss.
Other plaintiffs in the lawsuit included two village residents and the co-owner of an Orland Park business, The Brass Tap.
The lawsuit alleged that stateimposed restrictions ordered by Pritzker beginning in March in response to the pandemic violated the due process and equal protection clauses of the U.S. Constitution and that Pritzker overstepped his authority.
Thelawsuit argued, in part, that Pritzker had “failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that public health is significantly endangered without” restrictions
onbusinesses and residents.
In an Aug. 1 ruling in the lawsuit, Wood denied a motion by the village seeking a temporary restraining order as well as a preliminary injunction to overturn a series of executive orders issued by the governor.
Wood ruled the village and other plaintiffs failed to show they have been unduly harmed by the governor’s order and would have “a negligible likelihood of success” in pressing their claims.
Pekau said that the village’s early September motion indicating it planned to file an amendedlawsuitwas a way of giving village officials more time to ponder its options.
“We were trying to see what was happening out there,” he said.
The mayor said he did not know how much the lawsuit cost the village, but that he believed the complaint put pressure on the governor to relax restrictions on businesses, which allowed Orland Park businesses to reopen. He said he believed the sales tax revenue flowing into village coffers would more than offset the legal expenses.
“The money was well worth it because everything opened up,” Pekau said.
Trustee Dan Calandriello, who was opposed from the start to the litigation, said the consensus during Monday’s closeddoor session was drop the matter.
“The feeling was it was time to finish this thing,” he said.
Calandriello, who is an attorney, said he believes the total legal bill for Orland Park will be about $70,000 and was critical of the expense at a time when municipal revenues have been affected due to the pandemic.
“At the end of the day this was not productive,” he said.