A judge in Springfield has become the latest jurist to dismiss lawsuits accusing Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker of exceeding his powers in claiming emergency powers to issue executive orders imposing lockdown-style restrictions across the state in the name of fighting COVID-19.
On Nov. 4, Sangamon County Circuit Judge Raylene Grischow granted the request from the Illinois Attorney General’s office, representing Pritzker, to dismiss a group of six lawsuits filed against the governor by clients represented by southern Illinois attorney Tom DeVore.
The lawsuits had been filed in July at the same time in six different downstate counties – Bond, Clinton, Richland, Edgar, Adams and Sangamon counties. All of the lawsuits carried virtually identical claims.
Sangamon County Judge Raylene Grischow
Attorney DeVore, himself, was the plaintiff in the case filed in Bond County.
They argued Pritzker has overstepped the legal bounds of his authority in issuing executive orders in response to the outbreak and continuing presence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The lawsuits specifically argued the COVID-19 pandemic does not fit the criteria under state law as a public health emergency.
In the lawsuits, the plaintiffs argued the health effects, at the time Pritzker proclaimed a statewide disaster and began to impose restrictions, were not widespread enough to justify such a statewide action.
The complaints cited raw statistics, which they said showed that, at the time the lawsuits were filed, fewer than 1% of all residents in those counties have been confirmed to have been infected by the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, and far fewer had died from the virus at the time.
The complaints conceded COVID-19 qualified as “an appearance of a novel infections agent,” as spelled out in the Illinois Emergency Management Agency Act, and thus could qualify as a pandemic which could trigger a disaster declaration.
But the complaints disputed that the pandemic has not been accompanied in those counties by a “high probability of a large number of deaths … a large number of serious or long-term disabilities … (or) a widespread exposure to COVID-19.”
The complaints assert the governor had improperly declared disasters and employed his emergency powers statewide, when there were many counties, at the time, in which no true public health emergency then existed.
Judge Grischow, however, said the complaints fell short on facts needed to back up their claims.
“The county plaintiffs plead just three factual allegations in support of their theory: the total number of people who have been tested for, contracted, and died from COVID-19 in each of their counties,” the judge wrote in her order. “These factual allegations are insufficient to establish that the COVID-19 pandemic does not satisfy any of the three disjunctive requirements set forth in … the EMAA’s definition of public health emergency.
“The conclusions set forth in the county plaintiffs’ complaints are devoid of facts to support the conclusions.”
Judge Grischow said she believed “a cause of action may exist.” But she said “it just has not been properly pled.”
“… Illinois is a fact pleading state, which means that plaintiffs must allege facts, not conclusions to establish a viable cause of action,” Judge Grischow continued.
She dismissed all six lawsuits without prejudice, granting the plaintiffs the opportunity to correct their lawsuits’ shortcomings, if they could and desired to do so.
The lawsuits followed a broader action brought by DeVore and southeast Illinois State Rep. Darren Bailey in Clay County, challenging Pritzker’s powers under the Illinois state constitution and the IEMA Act.
In that action, Bailey became the first and only plaintiff thus far to secure a judgment from a court, declaring Pritzker’s executive actions unconstitutional. That case, however, has been removed to Sangamon County Circuit Court, as well, by order of the Illinois Supreme Court.
As part of that action, Bailey and DeVore had asked Judge Grischow for permission to amend Bailey’s lawsuit to include claims similar to those in the six dismissed lawsuits.
Grischow, in her Nov. 4 ruling, denied that request, saying the same findings that applied to the other six lawsuits also would apply to Bailey’s. If he wishes to amend his lawsuit, the judge said, he must do so with an amended pleading that aligns with her ruling.
Grischow has served in the Sangamon County courthouse since she was appointed to fill a judicial vacancy, beginning January 2019. She is a Republican. She ran unopposed for election to the court this fall.