U.S. District Court denies Orland Park’s motion for relief against Gov. Pritzker’s COVID-19 executive orders

By Jon DePaolis

A federal lawsuit filed by the Village of Orland Park against Gov. J.B. Pritzker has been denied by the U.S. District Court of Northern District of Illinois.

The lawsuit – which was filed in June by the Village, an Orland Park restaurant and two Orland Park residents – claimed the governor’s executive orders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic violated the U.S. Constitution, Illinois Constitution and the Public Health Act.

However, in an opinion filed on Aug. 1, Judge Andrea R. Wood denied the Village’s motion, stating the “plaintiffs have a negligible likelihood of success on the merits of those claims.” Wood also wrote that the “plaintiffs have not demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of any of their federal claims based on traditional constitutional analyses.”

She further wrote:

“The protective measures put in place through the Executive Orders follow guidance from leading public-health authorities and have no apparent nefarious ulterior motive to restrain individual rights. Granting a preliminary injunction to plaintiffs would do extraordinary damage to the state’s interest (and the public interest) in preventing the spread of COVID-19 right when many states are experiencing a surge in COVID-19 infections that poses a threat to public health nationwide.

“On the other side of the balance, Plaintiffs have made no showing that they are experiencing substantial harm as a result of the Executive Orders at this time or that they are likely to experience substantial harm in the near future.

“In sum, the potential harm to the public and the Governor’s interest in preventing that harm overwhelm any the potential harm to plaintiffs. Therefore, even if plaintiffs had shown some greater than negligible likelihood of prevailing on the merits, the balance of harms weighs so heavily against them as to preclude the requested preliminary injunctive relief.”

Trustee Dan Calandriello brought up the U.S. District Court’s decision during his comments at the Aug. 3 Village of Orland Park Board of Trustees meeting. He said that as the only board member who was an attorney, he felt obligated to mention the status of the lawsuit.

“This is an independent judge – a federal judge, not a County judge elected by the County residents,” Calandriello said. “I think it is safe to say that the judge thinks this lawsuit has no merit. That’s what our taxpayers spent, I want to say $66,000, on – getting laughed [at] by the judge.”

Mayor Keith Pekau, however, believes the lawsuit was successful in some ways. Reached by phone Friday, Aug. 7, the mayor said he believes that the lawsuits filed by Orland Park and others – as well as the statements and actions by other municipal governments – helped bring about change to the State’s original reopening plan.

“All of these things have moved the needle, because absent that, we might still be in Phase 2 in a lockdown,” Pekau said. “We don’t know what would have happened. Everything that we have asked for and pushed [for] and done has moved the needle.”

Ultimately, Pekau said he was not shocked by the U.S. District Court’s decision.

“Of course, the emergency need – because now Orland Park is fully open – was kind of somewhat moot,” he said. “The judgment doesn’t really affect anything. Once the other ruling came in downstate on July 2, it kind of rendered it somewhat moot. But we might as well have waited to get the opinion. It took a month to get it.”

Pekau also responded to those who would question whether or not the Village erred in spending money on a lawsuit that was dismissed.

“Hindsight is 20/20,” Pekau said. “If we knew [the state] was going to open through another means, we wouldn’t have done it. But we didn’t know that at the time. The goal was to get it opened. By being open this extra month, regardless of how it happened, the amount of revenue generated from that is significantly more than anything that was spent on the lawsuit.”

Pekau said the next steps for the Village regarding the lawsuit were “unclear and undecided.”

However, Trustee James Dodge challenged some of the mayor’s claims in a phone interview on Aug. 7.

“I completely disagree,” Dodge said. “A number of us wanted it ended immediately, because it has no chance whatsoever at success in the federal courts. We’ve already [wasted] more than $60,000 on this.”