A federal judge has ended a lawsuit alleging the village of Alsip’s “chronic public nuisance” ordinance violated the constitutional rights of tenants and landlords, while also discriminating against Black and brown residents.
U.S. District Judge LaShonda Hunt issued an opinion March 14 agreeing to dismiss the complaint of Naquita Williams and her daughter, Samara Cohen, who sued the village and Police Chief Jay Miller in the wake of Miller’s September 2021 letter linking Cohen’s arrest the prior day during a traffic altercation to her family’s rental unit. Miller sent a second letter five months later following an alleged drug transaction and arrest at Cohen’s apartment.
In arguing for dismissal, the village insisted two letters to a landlord cannot constitute a deprivation of 14th Amendment due process rights, and further argued that even had the landlord pursued an eviction, or if the village moved to revoke the landlord’s license, such actions would’ve been legal under Alsip’s crime free multi-housing program and landlord licensing ordinances.
Alsip Mayor John Ryan
| Village of Alsip
Hunt said the operative clause is the village’s definition of a “chronic public nuisance property” as “any rental unit at, in or which any three or more public nuisances have occurred within any one-year period, and any multifamily rental structure at, in or which any six or more public nuisances have occurred within any one-year period.”
The village has a three-step process for declaring a property a chronic public nuisance. It starts after the police chief learns of a report of public nuisance activity and notifies the landlord with a demand for corrective action, including a recommendation of eviction under the “crime free lease provision.” The next steps are notifying the landlord if the property has met conditions for a nuisance declaration and ultimately the landlord’s license status hearing before the mayor.
“The closest plaintiffs’ complaint comes to alleging a constitutional deprivation,” Hunt wrote, “is the allegation that the chronic public nuisance property ordinance ‘presents a risk of an erroneous deprivation of plaintiff’s property interest in their lease, through the procedures used, when no notice is presented to plaintiffs by defendants, and unreliable evidence may be used to support defendants’ claims.’ ”
Hunt said the plaintiffs also levied an intentional infliction of emotional distress claim stemming from their allegations of “the very real possibility of being dispossessed of their home,” yet make no allegation of being evicted, of their landlord taking any steps toward eviction, a loss of leaseholder rights or a terminated lease.
“Rather it appears that Williams still resides in the apartment and Cohen decided to move out,” Hunt wrote.
The women argued they would be hampered by a requirement to face an actual eviction in order to press their allegations, but Hunt said the actual “state court eviction proceeding would provide” the chance to oppose whatever the landlord might do in trying to comply with Alsip’s ordinance. They also argued they have “legitimate property interest in establishing their innocence, and their personal privacy and the accuracy of disclosures about them.”
But Hunt said Cohen’s criminal trial on a battery charge provides that due process channel exists, while adding that privacy rights don’t protect against disclosure of arrest records.
“Both the ordinance and the letters plainly state that the chief of police is relaying information about an incident from a police report to the landlord and that the tenant has been arrested for a crime, not convicted,” Hunt wrote. “Furthermore, while testimony from a police officer about witness statements might not be admissible evidence in a courtroom, the rules of evidence that govern administrative hearings conducted under local ordinances may allow for such testimony. If plaintiffs were to contest an eviction action in state court and raise individual factual disputes in that context, traditional rules of evidence would apply.”
Hunt further said the inability to allege due process violations similarly undercuts the women’s standing to bring constitutional claims. She declined to exercise jurisdiction over the emotional distress claim. She said their equal protection claims, alleging the ordinance disparately impacts Black people based on crime accusation statistics, rely on “factually undeveloped and conclusory references.”
Judge Hunt dismissed the constitutional claims with prejudice but will allow the women to refile their state law claims in a state court.
The office of Alsip Mayor John Ryan did not respond to a request for comment about the judge's ruling.
Judge Hunt was nominated to the bench in 2023 by President Joe Biden.