Exclusive: Massive Legal Action Filed Against Pritzker and State Agencies

Case involving 145 groups within dozens of Chicagoland school districts and 890,000 students heads to the courtroom

(Photo Credit: Spectrum News)

The fight against Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and unlawful mandates is taking place inside the courtroom.

Wednesday, a massive consolidated legal action against Pritzker involving 145 school districts, many within Chicagoland, and encompassing 890,000 students was filed in Macoupin County Circuit Court in Carlinville, IL.

Tom DeVore, whose Silver Lake Group law firm is representing the over 600 individual plaintiffs named in the suit, told The Kerr Report in an interview Wednesday that a hearing has been scheduled for Nov. 5 at 1:30 pm in the Macoupin County Circuit Court.

The case, first reported by The Kerr Report, lists Pritzker as a defendant, as well as state agencies the Illinois Department of Public Health, the Illinois State Board of Education and 145 school districts. The heads of those agencies, Dr. Ngozi Ezike (IDPH) and Dr. Carmen Ayala (ISBE) were also named as part of the legal action.

“We got it done,” DeVore said by phone. “It’s unique in that it’s probably the first time that there ever has been such a broad desire of people to come together and do this.”

The full legal action document can be found here.

Parental groups representing large-unit Chicagoland school districts such as Indian Prairie (D204), Wheaton (D200), Naperville (D203), St. Charles (D303), Warren (D121) and multi-unit District 211, the largest in Cook County, are named in the legal action. North Shore districts in Lake Forest (D115) and Winnetka (D36) are also part of the suit.

The plaintiffs in the case range from parents acting on behalf of their school-aged children, and teachers. There are two separate legal issues at play.

For teachers, the legal objection in the lawsuit is Pritzker’s use of executive orders to force masking and mandate COVID-19 vaccine intake and testing. For students, the issues being argued are forced masking and the exclusion of children from school, or quarantining.

DeVore said the Nov. 5 hearing is for legal issues involving students. The case for teachers is a separate action that will be filed at a later date.

At the hearing, DeVore will ask for a temporary restraining order (TRO) that would in effect overturn the school mask mandate and eliminate student exclusions from school, or quarantines.

DeVore will make the argument for “class certification” at the hearing. This would allow for all students within the school district named in the action to benefit from a favorable ruling, rather than just the individual plaintiffs.

For example, if a TRO is granted to plaintiffs representing a district that renders the forced masking executive order invalid, all students within that district would be part of the “class certification” and by law, not have to comply with the mandate.

“What I’m going to to try and do in this consolidated action is ask the court to certify each of those districts so it can apply to hopefully all the kids in that school. Whether or not I can get that I don’t know. But I’m going to try,” DeVore said.

The legal argument DeVore plans to make at the hearing is one of authoritative overreach by the executive branch of government, where Pritzker holds the highest seat.

DeVore said the governor cannot use executive orders or state agencies to order masking or exclusions.

“If you look at the law and what is required in order to put these types of health measures in place on an otherwise perfectly healthy person just merely to limit the spread of the disease, it can’t be done by the executive branch of government through his administrative agencies,” DeVore said. “The law under the Department of Public Health act says that in order to do these things you have to show that this person is a health risk. A perfectly healthy person is not a health risk.”

Four courts have agreed with DeVore’s argument.

Cases in Clinton County, Montgomery, Effingham and Bond County ruled in favor of the legal theory used in Wednesday’s filing. The Bond County ruling from earlier this month became the catalyst for the large scale consolidated action filed Wednesday in Macoupin County in Carlinville.

That case, made in the 5th District Appellate Court, vacated a temporary restraining order granted in September that schools could not enforce masking or quarantines without parental consent. The district appealed the ruling and on Oct. 1, a judge vacated the TRO because the plaintiffs in the case “failed to name the Governor, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), and the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) as party defendants,” according to the court ruling.

DeVore said the ruling gave a path forward for the amended complaint filed Wednesday that includes Pritzker and state agencies and heads of those agencies, Dr. Ezike and Dr. Ayala.

“The only thing that’s new now is that the Appellate Court said we have to add the governor and administrative agencies. The Appellate Court specifically said we are not addressing the issue of the legal merits of what we have ruled we just say you have to add the governor,” DeVore said. “Four out of four courts under these legal theories have said we agree with that, that’s what the law says.”“

When the hearing occurs on Nov. 5, DeVore will ask for all legal issues involving students to be resolved in one day.

“We’re going to ask the judge on one day - no masks on children unless the health department says it’s necessary and a court has oversight. No excluding a child from school unless the health department does it lawfully, and not merely because an executive order is trying to say you have to do these things,” DeVore said. “We’re going to ask for all of that in one day.”

That day in court is Nov. 5.

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