A federal judge has locked down another class action complaint from parents who said Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and the state agencies in his administration harmed students with disabilities by ordering schools closed as a Covid mitigation effort.
U.S. District Judge Manish Shah issued an opinion Oct. 12 granting the government defendants’ motion to dismiss the complaint from Christine Simmons and Hsinyi Liu. Their lawsuit alleged the state, Chicago School District, the downstate Ottawa Township High School District and others, including Illinois Superintendent of Education Carmen Ayala, failed to comply with several laws.
The complaint asserts Pritzker and the others violated the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act and Illinois state law, and violated students' and parents' rights under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection and due process clauses. The complaint also included allegations of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
The plaintiffs include children with disabilities, identified only by their initials and relationship to the named plaintffs. Liu’s son, a Chicago student, has Down syndrome and cognitive delays. Simmons’ son, who attended Ottawa Township High School, has a general learning disability. Both said Pritzker’s executive orders effectively undercut their individualized education plans.
According to Shah, the complaint alleges Pritzker’s March 13, 2020, order closing all public and private schools through March 30, 2020, “suspended a state law that requires school districts to receive approval before implementing virtual learning, and to hold a public hearing and communicate to teachers, students and staff 30 days before moving to virtual learning.”
Beyond that, the complaint said extended shutdowns, online classes and limited in-person instruction through the end of the 2020-2021 school year “changed plaintiffs’ educational placements without offering prior notice and reconvening IEP meetings,” Shah summarized, and further violated an IDEA stay-put provision that “requires schools to keep children with disabilities in their current educational placements while administrative or judicial due-process proceedings are pending. And they say defendants failed to reimburse them for the out-of-pocket expenses they spent on their children to make up for the schools’ failures.”
In arguing for dismissal, the government defendants say a request for an injunction under federal law is moot because the orders, now more than two years old, isn’t in effect. Although the plaintiffs argued the injunction would be proper because the state hasn’t lost the power to issue similar orders in the future, Shah noted Pritzker’s June 2020 executive order, which allowed schools to reopen, repealed earlier shutdown orders, which haven’t been reinstated.
“There is no reasonable expectation that the governor will reissue a shutdown order,” Shah wrote. “That’s especially true given that, during that time, two new variants emerged and the country experienced surges of the virus.”
Shah further noted the school district defendants have had full-time, in-person classes since the start of the 2020-2021 school year and also shouldn’t be expected to close their buildings.
Even if those claims weren’t moot, Shah said, the plaintiffs couldn’t get around the state’s sovereign immunity protections because “federal courts can’t enjoin state officers from violating state law.”
Shah likewise dismissed the RICO allegations, agreeing the 11th Amendment protects Pritzker and Ayala from RICO litigation seeking monetary damages for actions they took in their official capacities. And although he agreed the requests for nominal, compensatory and punitive damages under the IDEA, ADA, 14th Amendment and Rehabilitation Act aren’t moot, he said the plaintiffs can’t bring those claims until they exhaust the IDEA’s administrative processes — or at least make allegations that going through those steps wouldn’t be able to deliver the same relief they seek through the class action.
In addressing RICO claims against the school districts, Shah said the complaint doesn’t meet the pleading standards for fraud because the assertions are based “on information and belief” with “no grounds to suspect fraud” and too vague to satisfy requirements for specifics. And even if the school districts did commit wire or mail fraud, that wouldn’t be the cause of the plaintiffs’ IDEA allegations.
“Assuming plaintiffs were injured at all, they were injured by defendants’ lack of compliance with the IDEA — not by defendants’ misrepresentations to the federal government about their compliance,” Shah wrote. “Those misrepresentations would instead have injured the government, which gave the state funding on the explicit condition that the state comply with the IDEA. The absence of proximate cause cannot be fixed by amending the complaint, and because amending the RICO claims would be futile, those claims are dismissed with prejudice”
Shah’s dismissal of the other claims was without prejudice, meaning the parents are able to refile those claims and try again, if they can fix the deficiencies in their complaint identified by the judge.
The parents have been represented in the case by attorney Rory J. Bellantoni, of the Brain Injury Rights Group, of New York.
The Chicago Board of Education has been represented by attorneys Christy L. Michaelson and Elizabeth K. Barton, of its Department of Law.
OTHS has been represented by attorneys Eric B. Bernard and William F. Gleason, of the firm of Petrarca Gleason Boyle & Izzo, of Oak Brook.
The state defendants were represented by Assistant Illinois Attorney General Mary A. Johnston.