Seventh Circuit: No Jurisdiction Over Interlocutory Appeal After District Court Revokes Certification of the Appeal

By Andrew Kwalwaser
Law Clerk to Hon. Thomas E. Hoffman, Illinois Appellate Court, First District

In Kenosha Unified School District No. 1 Board ofEducation, et al. v. Whitaker, No. 16-8019, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals determined that it lost jurisdiction over an interlocutory appeal when the District Court of the Eastern District of Wisconsin revoked its certification of the appeal.

The plaintiff, a transgender boy, sued his school district for sex discrimination after his high school prohibited him from using the boys' bathroom. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss, which the district court denied. Following a hearing on the plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction, the defendants submitted a proposed order certifying for appeal the order that denied their motion to dismiss under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b). The district court entered the proposed order, and the defendants filed the instant petition for interlocutory appeal. Additionally, the defendants filed a separate appeal from the district court's order partially granting the preliminary injunction.

While the instant appeal was pending, the plaintiff moved the district court to reconsider certification pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b). The district court granted the plaintiff's motion and revoked certification, finding that the defendants "had not made a legal or factual argument in support of certification" and that the district court had erred by not soliciting argument on the issue. The district court also stated that it erred by omitting "interlocutory certification language" from the certification order.

ALA's Cases Pending Previews Illinois Supreme Court's November Term

Cases Pending, edited by Hon. Clare J. Quish (pictured left) and Gretchen Sperry, has been updated to discuss the Illinois Supreme Court’s November Term, which began Monday, November 14, 2016, with oral arguments scheduled for November 15, 2016. A total of 4 cases were heard – 1 civil and 3 criminal. Here is the civil case with the date of oral argument:

Board of Education of Springfield School District No. 186 v. The Attorney General of Illinois—No. 120343—November 15

Below is an abbreviated summary for the case. Summaries for this case and others pending with the Supreme Court can be found in our Cases Pending publication, accessible to ALA members on our website.

No. 120343
Board of Educ. of Springfield School Dist. No. 186 v. Attorney General of Illinois

The following two issues are presented in this appeal: (1) whether the signing of an agreement during a closed session meeting constitutes a final action in violation of section 2(e) of the Open Meetings Act (“Act”) where the agreement was later approved by vote at a subsequent public meeting; and (2) whether the public was adequately informed of the nature of the public action to be taken at the subsequent meeting.

Plaintiff, the Board of Education of Springfield School District No. 186 (“Board”), terminated its superintendent’s employment contract upon mutual agreement. The superintendent signed the agreement on January 31, 2013, and at a closed session meeting on February 4, 2013, a majority of the Board signed, but did not date, the agreement. The agenda for the March 5, 2013 Board meeting included an action item to approve a resolution related to the agreement and included a copy of the agreement itself. At the next Board meeting, the Board approved the agreement in open session and added the March 5, 2013 date to the Board members’ signatures on the agreement.

7th Circuit: Illinois Court of Claims' Rejection of Inmate's Complaint Did Not Preclude Review in Federal Court of Inmate's Similar Complaint

By Richard Harris
Law Clerk to Hon. Susan F. Hutchinson, Illinois Appellate Court, Second District

In McDonald v. Adamson, No, 15-1305, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently reversed a ruling from the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois that an inmate’s claims were barred by res judicata.
 
In 2010, Illinois state prison inmate Donald McDonald filed a complaint in the Illinois Court of Claims against the Illinois Department of Corrections. McDonald claimed that he had been denied his First Amendment free exercise rights as a practicing Muslim. He alleged that he was not permitted to attend Friday prayer services, that prison officials regularly stole prayer cassette tapes and prayer rugs, and that Christians were allowed to have more volunteers enter the prison than were Muslims. McDonald sought, among other things, a damages award of $5,000.
 
The Illinois Court of Claims conducted a hearing on McDonald’s complaint but failed to issue a decision for more than two years. In the interim, McDonald filed a similar complaint in the federal district court seeking injunctive relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In 2013, the Illinois Court of Claims issued an order rejecting the allegations in McDonald’s original complaint. The district court subsequently dismissed McDonald’s federal complaint, finding that the order from the Illinois Court of Claims rendered the federal complaint barred by res judicata.

Don't Miss Out on the ALA's November Events

By Josh Wolff
Research Attorney, Illinois Appellate Court, First District

On November 29, 2016, the ALA will host a luncheon focusing on ethics for appellate practitioners featuring Jim Grogan, Deputy Administrator and Chief Counsel of the Illinois Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission and Mary Foster, former Review Board counsel at the ARDC and current senior lecturer at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.

At the luncheon, Grogan and Foster will discuss ethical issues that uniquely affect appellate attorneys. The program will be held at the Union League Club in Chicago and run from noon t0 1:30 p.m. Attendees will receive one hour of MCLE ethics credit.

For more information and to register for either event, please click here.

DISCLAIMER: The Appellate Lawyers Association does not provide legal services or legal advice. Discussions of legal principles and authority, including, but not limited to, constitutional provisions, statutes, legislative enactments, court rules, case law, and common-law doctrines are for informational purposes only and do not constitute legal advice.

April ALA Speaker Erwin Chemerinsky Discusses Impact of Only Eight Supreme Court Justices

By Josh Wolff
Research Attorney, Illinois Appellate Court, First District

The Association’s April 2017 luncheon will feature Erwin Chemerinsky, the renowned legal scholar and dean of the University of California, Irvine School of Law. Chemerinsky recently wrote an article for the ABA Journal discussing how the United State’s Supreme Court’s lack of a ninth justice has affected its docket.

 

Chemerinsky observed that, at the end of the Court’s first month, its docket only had 39 cases, which was “significantly fewer than usual for this point of the term.” In addition to the smaller docket, Chemerinsky noted that the effect of only eight justices could be seen by looking at the Court’s December schedule for oral argument. “Four of the six days that the court is hearing arguments, the justices will hear only one case, rather than the two, or occasionally three, cases usually heard per day.”

 

Chemerinsky also believed that the Court is waiting for the appointment of a ninth justice for some cases that were granted review last January and have already been fully briefed, but remain without a date for oral argument. Those cases include: Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia,Missouri v. Pauley, which “concerns whether it violates free exercise of religion or denies equal protection for a state to give aid (the material for the bottom of playgrounds) to public and secular private schools, but not to religious schools”; Wisconsin v. Murr, which concerns “the takings clause and how it is determined whether adjacent pieces of property should be deemed to be one or two pieces of property”; and Microsoft v. Baker, which concerns “whether plaintiffs can appeal the denial of class certification by dismissing their suit.”

 

The full article can be accessed here.

 

DISCLAIMER: The Appellate Lawyers Association does not provide legal services or legal advice. Discussions of legal principles and authority, including, but not limited to, constitutional provisions, statutes, legislative enactments, court rules, case law, and common-law doctrines are for informational purposes only and do not constitute legal advice.