The Fourth District Appellate Court affirmed Sangamon County Associate Judge Jennifer M. Ascher’s order finding a lawsuit filed by a group of Illinois educators moot because the COVID-19 emergency orders they were challenging are no longer in effect.
Justice John Turner delivered the Rule 23 decision on Feb. 22 with Justices Eugene Doherty and James Knecht concurring.
The appellate court dismissed the appeal filed by dozens of Illinois school district employees, finding that the allegations are moot and no exceptions to the mootness doctrine apply.
The plaintiffs’ case was consolidated with other similar cases filed by school employees from Kane County, McLean County, Peoria County, Piatt County, Vermillion County, Williamson County and Effingham County, according to the case docket.
The plaintiffs filed a petition for declaratory relief and for a writ of injunction against Gov. J.B. Pritzker in December 2021 in regards to his use of the Illinois Emergency Agency Act when issuing 30-day executive orders during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pritzker’s first disaster proclamation was issued in March 2020, which designated the entire state a disaster area due to COVID-19. He continued issuing the 30-day proclamations consistently until May 11, 2023, when the federal disaster proclamation expired.
During that time, Pritzker issued a proclamation in September 2021 mandating school personnel to either receive a COVID-19 vaccine or undergo weekly testing in response to the “more aggressive and more transmissible” Delta variant. The requirements were in effect when the school employees filed their lawsuit, but the mandates expired in September 2022.
The school employees claimed the Illinois Emergency Agency Act violates the separation of powers provision of the Illinois Constitution by unconstitutionally delegating legislative authority to Pritzker.
They also allege violations of due process by failing to provide a process for challenging the requirements for school personnel and violations of their right to be free from unreasonable searches, seizures and invasions of privacy.
Pritzker filed a motion to dismiss the complaint, which was granted by Ascher.
In his motion to dismiss, Pritzker argued that the claims were moot because the orders have expired. However, he only made the mootness argument in regards to counts III through V in circuit court. He later made the mootness argument in regards to all counts on appeal.
The appellate court concluded that although arguments not raised in the the trial court are generally forfeited, “mootness arguments ‘may be raised at any time’ and cannot be forfeited because they relate to a court’s authority to hear a given controversy.”
The appellate court agreed that all counts of the complaint are moot, and they dismissed the appeal.
“An issue is moot where an actual controversy no longer exists between the parties or where events have occurred that make it impossible for the court to grant effective relief,” Turner wrote.
The appellate court found that because the executive orders are no longer in effect, a controversy involving the application of those orders no longer exists.
The plaintiffs argued that the public-interest exception to the mootness doctrine applied.
However, the appellate court concluded that no exception applied.
“While the public is rightfully interested in the propriety of the trial court’s determinations concerning executive orders pertaining to COVID-19, that alone does not automatically make the issue one of a public nature as defined by the public-interest exception,” Turner wrote.
“Given the changing nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and the end of federal and state emergency declarations, it is not clear the same executive orders would likely be reinstated,” he added.
This is especially true here, where the executive orders at issue arose from a concern about the continued spread of COVID-19 related to the more aggressive and more transmissible Delta variant which was prevalent at the time. As a result, we do not find the public-interest exception applies in this case,” Turner continued.
The other mootness exceptions include the capable-of-repetition-yet-avoiding-review-exception and the collateral-consequences-exception. The appellate court also concluded that neither of them were applicable.
Turner wrote that there is no reasonable expectation the plaintiffs will be subject to the same action again, and no collateral consequences surviving the expiration of the executive orders were identified.
The appellate court noted that a ruling on the constitutionality of the Illinois Emergency Agency Act would result in nothing more than an advisory opinion.
“Plaintiffs lost standing when the disaster proclamations and executive orders requiring vaccination or testing expired, because plaintiffs then were no longer in immediate danger of sustaining a direct injury. At that point, a determination of the constitutionality of the Act, absent an actual controversy, would amount to an advisory opinion,” Turner wrote.
"[I]t is inappropriate for this court to issue advisory opinions," he added.