SPRINGFIELD — A state appeals panel has erased $97,000 in attorney fees awarded to two trade associations that successfully challenged Gov. JB Pritzker’s efforts to rewrite worker compensation rules during the early days of COVID mitigation.
On April 22, 2020, the Illinois Manufacturers Association and the Illinois Retail Merchants Association filed a complaint in Sangamon County Circuit Court to challenge new Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission rules essentially forcing employers to prove their workers did not contract COVID-19 at work.
The trade associations had asserted the new rules would have reversed the usual workers' comp rules for infectious disease claims. Previously, it would have been left to the workers to prove they had contracted the virus in the workplace.
Sangamon County Chief Judge John Madonia
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Under the state’s workers’ comp system, employers could have been forced to pay for workers’ health care costs, as well as paying them up to two-thirds of their regular wages.
The business groups argued the emergency rules were issued improperly, and would wrongly leave employers to bear much of the cost for the state's response to COVID-19.
Two days later, Sangamon County Judge John Madonia granted a temporary restraining order preventing the IWCC from invoking or enforcing the rule. On April 27, the commission repealed the rule in order to "avoid the expense of litigation." It then filed a motion to dismiss, which Madonia approved on May 5.
On May 11, the Chicago law firm of Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale P.C., which represented the associations, asked Madonia to award legal fees and costs. The firm argued the fees were due under an Illinois Administrative Procedure Act provision which awards fees when administrative rules are invalidated by a court. Madonia granted that request in July 2020, writing that although the IWCC argued they withdrew the rules before it could be invalidated, his restraining order had the same “practical effect.”
The state commission took its case to the Illinois Fourth District Appellate Court. Justice Robert Steigmann wrote the panel’s decision, issued July 14; Justices James Knecht and Craig DeArmond concurred.
The decision was issued as an unpublished order under Supreme Court Rule 23, which may limit its use as precedent.
“Generally, the circuit court has broad discretion in awarding attorney fees,” Steigmann wrote. However, “under the plain meaning of the statute, plaintiffs did not have the emergency rule at issue in this case invalidated by a court.”
Madonia’s temporary restraining order didn’t invalidate the rule, the panel continued, but maintained the status quo until such time as a judge could rule on a preliminary injunction. That meant Illinois employees claiming workers’ compensation still were required to present proof to back claims they acquired an infectious disease in the workplace, or that it was otherwise attributable to actions taken by their employer.
“The fact that a TRO is inherently temporary supports our conclusion that the TRO alone did not constitute an invalidation of the Commission’s emergency rule,” Steigmann wrote. “Moreover, any suggestion that the Commission’s repeal of the emergency rule constituted invalidation ‘by the court’ because it was motivated by the circuit court’s entry of the TRO is contrary to the plain language of the statute.”
In arguing against the fees, the Commission pointed to an instance where grain producers convinced an Illinois Department of Agriculture hearing officer to not apply rules about notification requirements. That situation also did not lead to an award of legal fees for the producers because there was never a circuit court decision on the rules.
“Likewise, in this case, it was the actions of the Commission, not a court, that resulted in theinvalidation of the emergency rule,” Steigmann wrote. “The legislature clearly contemplated that invalidation of an administrative rule could occur by voluntary repeal or amendment by the administrative agency and chose to specifically require that attorney fees only be awarded when a party has an administrative rule invalidated by the court.”
The associations pointed to language allowing a judge to award fees after invalidating a rule “for any reason,” but the panel said that clause “does not negate the fact that the invalidation must be by the court.”
The panel reversed Madonia’s judgement and vacated his order of legal fees and costs.