Madison County Associate Judge Ronald Foster approved a proposed settlement for a 2015 class action involving a disputed $1 vendor processing fee for Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) Card applications.
“The court notes that both plaintiff’s counsel and the defendants’ counsel have vigorously litigated this case for over seven years,” Foster wrote. “Both the class and the defendants have been well represented.”
Wood River attorney Thomas Maag of Maag Law Firm LLC sought final approval for the settlement on behalf of 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 when applying for said FOID card.”
Maag argues that the settlement provides “a substantial benefit to the individual class members.”
In his order granting final approval of the proposed settlement, Foster wrote that the plaintiffs and their counsel “have been successful is shown in substantial part by the fact that the legislature amended the statute, apparently, at least partially as a result of this case.”
Foster acknowledged the parties who opted out of the settlement, saying the attorney general has filed the appropriate paperwork concerning them.
He also denied three objections to the settlement.
“The court has considered these objections and finds them without merit,” Foster wrote. “The court also notes that they were not mailed to counsel, in violation of this court’s order, which is another basis this court denies the objections. Court also notes that at least one of these objectors claims to have opted out, and thus lacks standing to object.”
Maag also filed a motion for approval of $100,000 in costs and attorney’s fees.
“Plaintiff’s counsel has paid, out of its own pocket, $3,590 in court costs,” Maag wrote. “Counsel worked at least 749 hours on the suit. At $300 per hour, the fee would be well beyond the $100,000 agreed to.”
“Counsel is also well experienced in class action, as well as firearms law, both of which were at issue in this case,” he added.
The motion states that no member of the class is obligated to pay the plaintiff’s counsel.
“This amount will cover the cost of filing, service, mailing notice, costs of suit and any class counsel attorney fee,” Maag wrote. “These proposed payments and this settlement are fair and adequate when considering the facts and circumstances of the case and the value of the prospective relief sought.”
Foster held that the issue of costs and fees would be heard at a later date.
Maag filed the suit in the Madison County Circuit Court on Oct. 15, 2015, for plaintiff Gary Patrick Sterr and the class of FOID card owners.
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 argued that statute 430 ILCS 65/5 expressly states that the FOID fee is $10.
By charging an additional $1, he claimed the state is unilaterally imposing a 10 percent surcharge on FOID cards without statutory authority.
He further claimed 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 noted 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, Madison County Circuit Judge Dennis 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.”
Ruth later granted Maag’s motion to amend the complaint and add a request for injunctive relief. Maag sought to bar the “defendant from charging any 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 payment, without payment of additional fees and costs.”
In their objection to the motion for leave to amend the complaint, defendants Chief Firearm Services Bureau Gregory Hacker, Treasurer Michael Frerichs and Attorney General Kwame Raoul argued that an amended complaint would require them to file new summary judgment requests to address the new form of relief. Their previous summary judgment requests were supposed to be heard in March, but nothing further had been entered on the docket.
The defendants alleged that adding injunctive relief would prejudice the parties and delay resolution of the proceedings.
“If plaintiff were allowed leave to amend, then this case starts from the beginning - with defendants being given the opportunity to move to dismiss, challenge class certification as to the new forms of relief, engage in any discovery relevant to the new allegations, and refile for summary judgment with the latest claim in mind,” the objection stated.
The defendants argued that the request should be denied because the plaintiff has failed to establish facts supporting any cause of action, and the requested amendment “does not cure that deficiency.”
“Furthermore, the addition of injunctive relief, at this late state of the litigation, would prejudice defendants and significantly delay the proceedings.
“Plaintiff had multiple opportunities to amend at much earlier stages of the litigation, and does not explain why he choose (sic) to amend at this late stage,” the objection stated.
Madison County Circuit Court case number 15-L-1337