Recent Court Decisions

Summary: The Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office violated FOIA when it improperly withheld records relating to a police chase.
 
On March 9th, 2020, the Requestor, a staff writer for the Rockford Register Star, submitted a FOIA request to the Rockford Sherriff’s Office (Sherriff’s Office). The request sought, “[a] copy of any squad car camera footage before, during, and after the Feb. 8, 2016, police chase and fatal crash that killed [a named individual], emergency dispatch audio concerning that case, crash and incident, and any written critique, review or report concerning the attempted traffic stop and fatal crash.”
 
A few weeks later, the Sherriff’s Office denied the FOIA request pursuant to Section 7(1)(d)(iii) of FOIA, citing a pending civil lawsuit related to the crash. The Sherriff’s Office said that, “disclosure would deprive both the County of Winnebago and [the] Sherriff’s Deputy…of their rights to a fair trial or an impartial judication.” Requestor then sent a Request for Review to the PAC to contest the denial of the request.
 
Section 7(1)(d)(iii) of FOIA exempts public bodies from disclosing information that might jeopardize a fair trial. Specifically, it states that, “[r]ecords in the possession of any public body created in the course of administrative enforcement proceedings, and any law enforcement or correctional agency for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that disclosure would…create a substantial likelihood that a person will be deprived of a fair trial or an impartial hearing” are exempt from disclosure. Under Section 1.2 of FOIA, any public body asserting that a record is exempt from disclosure must prove the exemption with clear and convincing evidence.
 
According to the PAC, the explanation from the Sherriff’s Office did not satisfy the requirements of Section 7(1)(d)(iii) of FOIA because the Sherriff’s Office did not provide any specific reasons as to why the disclosure of the materials requested would impede a fair trial or impartial hearing. For this reason, Sheriff’s Office did not demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that the records were exempt from disclosure. The PAC ruled that the Sherriff’s Office violated FOIA, and it directed the Sherriff’s Office to comply with the request.
 
This opinion is binding only to the parties involved and may be appealed pursuant to State law.

The South Loop Elementary School Local School Council (Council) violated the Open Meetings Act (OMA) during its meeting on February 12th, 2020 when it discussed the schedule and process for evaluating the school’s principal during a closed session.
 
The Requestor, a member of the Council, submitted a request for review to PAC on March 5th, 2020. Requestor alleged that the Council violated OMA by discussing the incorporation of surveys into the evaluation process during closed session. Requestor also stated that the scheduling of the evaluation was improperly discussed in closed session. Requestor raised her objection during the meeting, but another member of the Council insisted that it was fine to discuss these subjects during the closed session because they pertained to the evaluation.
 
Section 2(a) of OMA states that all meetings held by public bodies must be open to the public unless it covers certain subjects listed in Section 2(c). Specifically, Section 2(c)(1) of OMA allows public bodies to enter closed session when discussing “[t]he appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees, * * * or legal counsel or the public body[.]"  
 
The PAC held that Section 2(c)(1) “applies to discussions concerning specific employees. This exception does not permit a public body to discuss in closed session considerations applicable to categories of employees, such as the process for evaluating their performance.” For this reason, the PAC found that the Council violated Section 2(a) of OMA when it discussed the process and scheduling of the school principal’s evaluation in closed session. The Council was directed by the PAC to make the unauthorized sections of the closed session meeting available to the public.
 
This opinion is binding only to the parties involved and may be appealed pursuant to State law.

The Illinois Department of Agriculture violated FOIA by improperly redacting information from responsive material as prohibited from disclosure by State law under Section 7(1)(a).
 
On December 6, 2019, a requestor on behalf of the Chicago Tribune (Requestor) submitted a FOIA request to the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDA) seeking copies of all applications for adult use cannabis cultivation center licenses. Requestor specifically stated that while he understood some information would need to be redacted for privacy (e.g., social security numbers), he stated he expected the names and addresses of each principal officer and board member to be included “in keeping with the intent of the sponsors [of the Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act] to provide transparency to this newly legal industry.”
 
Later that month, IDA responded by providing copies of the applications but it redacted: 1) names of owners, principal officers, and board members of cannabis cultivation centers, 2) facility addresses, and 3) dates of birth of principal officers and board members of cannabis cultivation centers. Requestor disputed these redactions with the PAC.
 
Upon review, IDA asserted that: the names of cultivation centers’ principal officers and board members, as well as street addresses of cultivation centers, were redacted under Section 7(1)(a) of FOIA, which exempts from disclosure any information specifically prohibited from disclosure by federal or State law. IDA further asserted that dates of birth were redacted under Section 7(1)(c) of FOIA, which exempts from disclosure personal information whose disclosure would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. Regarding the Section 7(1)(a) assertion, IDA contended that the information was prohibited from disclosure by sections 145(a) and 145(a)(2) of the Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Act (MCA), which prohibit disclosing records kept by the IDA for the purpose of administering the MCA. This includes applications by or on behalf of cannabis cultivation centers.
 
The PAC stated that the MCA does not pertain to adult use cannabis facilities, since their licenses are regulated by the Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act.  That means that the information redacted on the applications in question were not prohibited from being disclosed by State law. However, the PAC found that IDA properly redacted birth dates on the applications pursuant to Section 7(1)(c) of FOIA.
 
For these reasons, the PAC held that IDA violated FOIA by improperly redacting information under Section 7(1)(a).
 
This opinion is binding only to the parties involved and may be appealed pursuant to State law.

Continuing the Illinois courts’ historical trend of denying constitutional challenges to the State’s public education funding system, the Fifth District Appellate Court (Court) held that the Circuit Court of St. Clair County properly dismissed a complaint filed by 21 Illinois school districts (Plaintiffs) against Governor Pritzker and the State of Illinois (Defendants) alleging inadequate school funding in violation of the Illinois Constitution.
 
In 1997, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) adopted the Illinois Learning Standards, which set forth certain skills that Illinois students must demonstrate at different grade levels. Since then, the Learning Standards have developed and evolved to include Common Core State Standards for English, Language Arts, and Mathematics.
 
Plaintiffs’ complaint alleged that while the State required them to adhere to the Learning Standards and Illinois passed the Evidenced Based Funding Act of 2017 (Funding Act) (allowing under-resourced districts to apply for additional funding to meet the Learning Standards requirements), Defendants were not providing adequate funding to their under-resourced districts. Specifically, in Count I Plaintiffs alleged that ISBE calculated that the State must spend an additional $7.2 billion (or $15.7 billion annually) to provide students with the “high quality” education required by Article X of the Illinois Constitution, and failing to do so violates the Illinois Constitution. In Count II, Plaintiffs alleged that disparities in per pupil expenditures across Illinois school districts have no legitimate basis in law, and operating such an unconstitutional system of public education deprives Plaintiffs and their students of equal protection in violation of Article I of the Illinois Constitution. In relief, Plaintiffs sought a declaration that Defendants have a constitutional obligation to provide adequate funding, determined by ISBE and pursuant to the Funding Act.
 
Defendants filed a motion to dismiss the complaint, asserting that: 1) Plaintiffs lacked standing to assert the rights of the students in their districts, 2) Defendants were immune due to the doctrine of sovereign immunity, which protects the State and state actors like the Governor from lawsuits and says that Illinois can only be named as a defendant in the Court of Claims, 3) Plaintiffs failed to state a cause of action for a deprivation of constitutional rights, and 4) the Governor was not a proper party in Plaintiffs’ complaint because he did not have the power to ensure that the State would set aside enough money for the under-funded districts. The circuit court granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss with prejudice, and Plaintiffs appealed.
 
On appeal, the Court first agreed that the doctrine of sovereign immunity protects the State from suit, and it dismissed the State of Illinois as a Defendant. For argument’s sake, however, the Court did not determine if sovereign immunity protected the Governor and it analyzed Plaintiffs’ claims against him. Regarding Count I, the Court cited Illinois Supreme Court precedent established in Committee for Educational Rights v. Edgar, 174 Ill. 2d 1 (1996), which held that determining whether educational institutions and services in Illinois are “high quality”  is “outside the sphere of judicial function.” Plaintiffs argued that this case differed because we now had Learning Standards and the General Assembly had defined what funding is required for “high quality” education under the Funding Act. The Court was not swayed, finding that only the Illinois Supreme Court could disturb its previous holding, and it dismissed Count I. Regarding Count II, the Court again deferred to Edgar, which had also considered the same question posed by Count II and had determined that the State’s public education funding system is rationally related to the legitimate State goal of promoting local control – meaning the courts would not interfere. For these reasons, the Court affirmed the dismissal of Plaintiffs’ complaint with prejudice.
 
Notably, Justice Wharton dissented in part, stating “I believe that we have a duty to address the education quality and funding issues presented by the 21 plaintiffs instead of ignoring or postponing this critical issue of utmost urgency and importance to our citizens and our State with an overly-broad application of Edgar’s holding.” Wharton pointed out that while courts must defer to supreme court precedent “regardless of the impact of any societal evolution that may have occurred,” the issues in this case involved legislative evolution that modified and established a de facto definition of the constitutionally-mandated “quality education.” Regarding the local control argument Edgar spoke to, Justice Wharton stated that “[P]laintiffs only plead for adequate educational funding resources to exercise some degree of ‘local control.’”

The Will County Circuit Court denied Plaintiffs’ petition for a Temporary Restraining Order to prohibit the City of Joliet City Council (Joliet) from proceeding with a vote on a controversial land annexation during a meeting held under relaxed Open Meetings Act (OMA) meeting standards due to the COVID-19 pandemic, finding that the vote did not violate OMA.
 
OMA requires that all meetings of public bodies be open to the public and be held at specific times and places which are convenient and open to the public, meaning they allow for reasonable accessibility. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Governor issued Executive Order 2020-07, suspending the requirement for members of a public body to be physically present and suspending the conditions that would normally limit when remote participation is permitted. Executive Order 2020-07 also encouraged public bodies to provide video, audio, and/or telephonic access to ensure that members of the public could monitor meetings that are “necessary.” Plaintiffs alleged that Joliet’s meeting was not “necessary” because it had nothing to do with pandemic response and there was no indication that residents would be harmed if the vote was postponed. Plaintiffs further alleged that even if the meeting was deemed “necessary,” Joliet had made no effort to make the meeting accessible to people lacking cable TV or internet access because the meeting could only be attended by phone if someone pre-registered online and waited for a call back.
 
Regarding Plaintiffs’ first allegation, that the meeting was not “necessary,” the Court stated “it would be judicial activism for this Court to tell Joliet what is, and is not, important to Joliet” and that such a matter was for Joliet’s elected officials to decide. Regarding Plaintiffs’ second allegation, that the meeting was not accessible, the Court noted that Joliet had announced the meeting five days in advance, was permitting the public to comment by telephone or email, and the meeting would be shown live on public access television, on Joliet’s website, and through social media. As for people without access to cable television, telephone, or internet, the Court stated that “is a relatively small segment of the population, and the law requires only a reasonable opportunity to participate” and thus Joliet had complied with its OMA obligations. Despite finding for Joliet, public bodies should be cautious in their use of the relaxed OMA standards during the pandemic because the Court disdainfully stated that “[t]he Court was not born yesterday. Having this meeting in the way the City has decided is shady and does a disservice to the public. But that does not make it illegal.”