Sangamon County Judge Raylene Grischow scheduled a hearing for Feb. 25 on numerous motions to join lawsuits challenging Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s school mask mandates and other COVID-19 mitigation measures.
Attorney Tom DeVore of Silver Lake Legal in Greenville represents hundreds of Illinois students and parents in the lawsuits. After Grischow granted a temporary restraining order on Feb. 4 and several schools initially only allowed named plaintiffs to go maskless, he provided an opportunity for additional parents and students to join the existing lawsuits.
In a Feb. 15 post on his Facebook page, DeVore said that so many people filed requests for joinder or new lawsuits through other attorneys that they crashed the filing system at the Sangamon County Circuit Court. He said the system had to be rebooted.
DeVore
“The small fringe minority is where my people come from,” he wrote.
On Feb. 13, DeVore also announced that he plans on filing a new lawsuit against any school district that is not already named in one of the other cases. Those interested must complete the application process.
He added that other attorneys across the state are also filing new cases.
DeVore said that while the Feb. 15 decision by the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) to suspend the Illinois Department of Health’s attempt to renew mask mandates in schools is a victory, it is not the “end game.”
“My friends,” he wrote. “There are many matters happening in favor of freedom and liberty. Don’t lose sight of the long game which is to finish this matter once and for all with a final ruling from a court that JB was engaging in unlawful behavior. That’s the end game.”
He added that JCAR was the catalyst for several local school districts voting to make masks optional on Feb. 16, “and my clients will finish it up in the courtroom.”