A group of pro-Hamas and anti-Israel activists are attempting to toss a class action lawsuit seeking to make them pay for blockading the main road into Chicago's primary airport for three hours last spring, allegedly "imprisoning" innocent bystander "hostages" in the resulting traffic snarl and upending countless travel plans and other life and work events in the process, to stage what plaintiffs called an illegal protest in support of a terrorist Islamic regime.
In their filings, the activists say the lawsuit amounts to a frivolous lawsuit attempting to silence their speech and allegedly falsely label them as supporters of terrorism.
The legal action first landed in Chicago federal court in September 2024, when attorney Theodore "Ted" Frank, M. Frank Bednarz, Neville S. Hedley and others with the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute of Chicago and Indianapolis filed suit against the activist organizations.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of named plaintiff Christopher Manhart, of Valparaiso, Indiana.
However, the lawsuit seeks to expand the action to include potentially thousands of others who were caught in the hours-long traffic jam caused when members of the activist organizations blocked Interstate 190 ramp into O'Hare International Airport in Chicago last April.
According to the complaint, the blockade was intended by the activists to not only disrupt traffic leading into the airport, but to maximize economic and societal disruption in an effort to protest the Israeli military actions against Hamas in Gaza in response to the deadly October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks Hamas launched in Israel.
"These groups hoped that Defendants, and those like them across the world, would draw attention to their cause by bringing economic centers to a halt," the complaint said.
"And on the I-190 expressway, the Defendants succeeded, trapping thousands in their cars."
The complaint asserts the Chicago blockade was part of a nationwide coordinated effort, known as A15, "to disrupt major economic centers" in the U.S. in an effort to support efforts by Hamas to rally international support in the U.S. and elsewhere to pressure Israel to halt their military operations in Gaza.
According to the complaint, Manhart was among thousands of people traveling to O'Hare that day either to catch flights themselves or pick up and drop off passengers at the airport.
According to the complaint, the blockade lasted for three hours and resulted in thousands of people missing flights, leaving people scrambling and missing important events at their intended destinations.
According to the complaint, Manhart missed his flight and missed an important work event to which he was traveling, missing out on potential business opportunities as a result of the blockade.
"People missed flights and downstream commitments," the complaint said. "Vacations, interviews, weddings, and other important lifetime events were cast aside as the activists forced the public to participate in their demonstration by falsely imprisoning them."
The lawsuit accuses the activists and their organizations of conspiring to violate Illinois law by "willfully and unnecessarily" blocking traffic on the busy expressway and falsely imprisoning motorists on the roadway in their vehicles for hours, resulting in "loss of personal freedom" and "lost business opportunities," among other harms.
The complaint is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, plus attorney fees.
The plaintiffs are also seeking a court order forbidding the activists from attempting such an action again.
In a post describing the lawsuit on their website, the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute said: "While Americans enjoy broad protections to speak, A15 Action was not a protest, but a planned effort to damage the American economy. Those who plotted the economically-damaging blockades should be held accountable to prevent further politically-motivated attacks in the future."
Organizations named as defendants in the action include the National Students for Justice in Palestine; WESPAC Foundation; Dissenters; Jewish Voice for Peace; and The Tides Center, which does business as the Community Justice Exchange.
Individual defendants are identified as activists Jinan Chehade, identified as a primary organizer of the O'Hare blockade; Superior Murphy, who filmed the blockade; Rifqa Falaneh, identified as present of the SJP's DePaul University affiliate in Chicago and an organizer of the blockade; and Simone Tucker, identified as a JVP organizer and organizer of the blockade.
According to the complaint, Tucker "bragged to the media that 'we made our point. We stood in solidarity with our comrades in Palestine, and we disrupted business as usual."
In response, the activists and their organizations have urged the court to dismiss the lawsuit.
They have also moved for sanctions against the plaintiffs, including Frank and his fellow attorneys, for bringing what they called a "baseless" lawsuit intended to "intimidate advocates for Palestinian liberation into silence."
"In service of that goal, Plaintiff asserts a private right of action where none exists, colors his time spent in traffic as akin to imprisonment and concocts a broad conspiracy to violate his rights based on little more than social media posts and his own 'information and belief,'" the activists said.
"All the while, the plain text of the complaint attempts to frame Defendants’ advocacy as terrorism."
The motion for sanctions further accused Frank and his colleagues of being motivated by anti-Palestinian racism. They pointed to a quote attributed to Frank in an article published by the Washington Free Beacon, in which Frank criticized the provision of free legal support from a legal "clinic" at Northwestern University to help the activists defend against the class action over the O'Hare blockade.
In that article, Frank is quoted, saying: "These are free legal services, or at least unpriced legal services. They're paid for by the Northwestern budget, which in turn comes from tuition dollars, it comes from taxpayers, it comes from donations.
"There's an irony that these free lawyers, in a world where there's so much legal need, devote scarce resources to defending people who want to destroy the very system of Western abundance in favor of barbarians."
The activist organizations and individual defendants are represented by attorneys Sheila A. Bedi, of the Community Justice & Civil Rights Clinic at Northwestern University; Megan Porter; Amanda S. Yarusso; Precious S. Jacobs-Perry and Ali I. Alsarraf, of Jenner & Block, of Chicago; Nora Snyder and Brad Thomson, of the People's Law Office, of Chicago; and Hanna Chandoo and Dan Stormer, of the firm of Hadsell Stormer Renick & Dai, of Pasadena, California.
The plaintiffs have yet to respond in court to the motions to dismiss and the associated sanctions requested against them.
The case is being heard by U.S. District Judge Mary M. Rowland, who was appointed during the first term of President Donald Trump.