A class of Illinois residents seek to amend their complaint to clearly include a request for injunctive relief in a suit involving a disputed $1 overcharge for Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) card applications.
On Nov. 5, attorney Thomas Maag filed the motion for leave to amend the complaint on behalf of the plaintiffs. He seeks to amend the request for an injunction.
“That while plaintiff has been seeking an injunction throughout the case, there has been argument that such an injunction was not expressly called for in the ad damnum,” Maag wrote. “That in order to rectify this alleged oversight, and to clarify that the class is seeking this injunctive relief, plaintiff and the certified class think it best to amend to expressly and clearly include this requested relief.”
Specifically, the plaintiffs seek an injunction barring the defendants from “charging any fee, including a credit card fee, convenience fee, check fee, online fee, or other fee, for a FOID card application or renewal, over and above the total of $10.00 allowed by statute, unless Defendant offers one or more reasonable mechanisms for the applicant to obtain a FOID card with only a $10.000 payment, without payment of additional fees and costs.”
In a motion for summary judgment filed Nov. 2, Chief of the Firearm Services Bureau of the Illinois State Police Gregory Hacker and Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs argued that the complaint does not identify any other form of relief other than damages against the state.
Maag filed the suit in Madison County Circuit Court on Oct. 15, 2015, for plaintiff Gary Patrick Sterr and “all persons who applied for a FOID card from March 15, 2015, through and including the date of final judgment and paid a fee in excess of $10.00 when applying for said FOID card.”
In the complaint, Maag wrote that Sterr filed an application for a FOID card on Oct. 6, 2015, and was charged the extra dollar as a convenience fee through the Illinois E-pay program for processing applications online. He argues that statute 430 ILCS 65/5 expressly states that the FOID fee is $10.
By charging an additional $1, he claims the state is unilaterally imposing a 10 percent surcharge on FOID cards without statutory authority.
He further claims it is impossible to get a FOID card without paying the extra fee on top of the $10 mandatory cost (except for certain members of the military who are exempt all together) because the Firearms Services Bureau stopped accepting paper applications that allowed people to mail $10 checks or money orders.
"Defendants have charged a minimum of ten thousand people, and possibly substantially more, well into the hundreds of thousands or millions of class members," Maag wrote.
For example, he wrote that in 2011, the state received 321,000 FOID applications.
Maag notes that in order to lawfully possess a firearm in Illinois, "it is generally required to have in a person's possession a currently valid" FOID card.
In June 2017, Ruth granted class certification after concluding that the prerequisites for maintenance of a class action are met and certification is appropriate for the “fair and efficient adjudication of the controversy.”
Madison County Circuit Court case number 15-L-1337