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COOK COUNTY RECORD

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Appeals court: Homeschooling mom didn't formally apply for student Ventra cards for kids, can't sue CTA for denial

State Court
Cta bus

David Wilson from Oak Park, Illinois, USA [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

CHICAGO — A state appeals panel has rejected the lawsuit of a woman who alleged the CTA, Pace and Ventra violated her rights and those of her children when they refused to issue discounted rate transit cards to homeschooled students.

Cook County Judge Neil Cohen had determined that Ariel Elliot lacked standing to bring her lawsuit, while also ruling her lawsuit failed to state a valid cause of action. 

A three-justice panel of the Illinois First District Appellate Court ruled on Elliot’s appeal in an order issued Oct. 17. Justice Eileen Burke wrote the decision. Justices Bertina Lampkin and Jesse Reyes concurred. The order was issued under Supreme Court Rule 23, which restricts its use as precedent, except under very limited circumstances permitted by the Supreme Court rule.

Elliot’s lawsuit said homeschooled students had been allowed to pay discounted rates for magnetic stripe fare cards bought from on-site agents, CTA’s customer service office or the Pace website. But after the agencies made Ventra the exclusive card-based fare payment option, CTA and Pace enacted policies explicitly stating students could only get discounted fares with student Ventra cards.

Eliot said the student cards were distributed directly to Chicago Public Schools, as well as certain private schools. Any student at a school that didn’t get cards could apply directly to Ventra for a card to be sent to the school, but the cards could never be shipped to a residence. Elliot said she called Ventra customer assistance multiple times and was told her children weren’t eligible for discount fares because “they weren’t in school.”

In moving to dismiss, the agencies said Elliot lacked standing because she never submitted the written application and, therefore, was not denied under established procedure. The justices further said that the bases of Elliot’s claims relied on the rights of third parties, homeschooled students. On appeal, Elliot argued she is the proper party as the one who pays for the transit fares and, alternatively, that she should have been allowed to amend the complaint to list her children as plaintiffs.

The panel agreed with Cohen, noting, because Elliot never submitted a written application, she cannot argue that the agencies denied her or her children the discounted fare.

“She alleges that she called the customer support telephone number on the application and was told that homeschooled children were not eligible for student Ventra cards,” Burke wrote. “But she acknowledges that she was not attempting to apply for a student Ventra card by phone and she does not suggest that the customer service representatives were responsible for determining eligibility for student Ventra cards.”

The court said it had “no way of knowing” if the agencies would have denied Elliot’s application. Although Elliot said the application would have been futile, given the explicit instructions that cards would not be sent to a residential address, the panel ruled a plaintiff cannnot avoid the requirement to exhaust all administrative remedies before filing a lawsuit.

“The application does not explicitly state that homeschooled children cannot receive student Ventra cards as plaintiff seems to suggest,” Burke wrote. “Indeed, as the plaintiff points out, there is nothing in the ordinances at issue that would exclude homeschooled children from receiving student Ventra cards.”

Elliot alleged homeschooled students are “routinely” denied student discounts, but the panel said she “failed to support that conclusory contention with any specific facts.” What a customer service agent said on the phone, Burke noted, does not equate to a “facially discriminatory written policy.”

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