ADT Security Services, Inc. v. Lisle-Woodridge Fire Protection District

724 F.3d 854, 86 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 45, 2013 WL 3927716, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 15632
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedJuly 31, 2013
Docket12-2925, 12-2981
StatusPublished
Cited by22 cases

This text of 724 F.3d 854 (ADT Security Services, Inc. v. Lisle-Woodridge Fire Protection District) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
ADT Security Services, Inc. v. Lisle-Woodridge Fire Protection District, 724 F.3d 854, 86 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 45, 2013 WL 3927716, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 15632 (7th Cir. 2013).

Opinion

HAMILTON, Circuit Judge.

In this case we revisit factual and legal issues concerning the Illinois law establishing fire protection districts and one district’s effort to shut down the private market in fire alarm monitoring services by substituting for it a less safe and less reliable system operated by just one chosen vendor.

In 2009 the Lisle-Woodridge Fire Protection District passed an ordinance under which it took over fire alarm monitoring for all commercial properties in the District. The private alarm companies that had previously provided those services in the District sued, alleging that the ordinance interfered with their business, created an illegal monopoly for the District, violated their constitutional rights, and exceeded the District’s statutory powers. In an earlier appeal from the district court’s first order permanently enjoining the District from implementing the ordinance and granting summary judgment for the alarm companies, we affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded, finding on review of summary judgment that the District had the authority to enforce parts of the 2009 ordinance. We remanded for the district court to revise its permanent injunction. ADT Security Svcs., Inc. v. Lisle-Woodridge Fire Protection District, 672 F.3d 492 (7th Cir.2012).

On remand the district court held a four-day evidentiary hearing. The district court issued a modified permanent injunction that was based on new factual findings that are more detailed and differ somewhat from the limited summary judgment *858 record upon which we based our 2012 decision. The District now appeals from the revised permanent injunction order with a long list of objections, but it argues primarily that the revised permanent injunction conflicts with our 2012 decision.

In our 2012 decision, we preserved much of the District’s authority to enforce its ordinance. But the evidentiary hearing following our remand showed that many material facts are actually different from what we had to assume when we reviewed the grant of summary judgment, particularly with regard to the statutory authority for and the motivation and efficacy of the District’s plan. We therefore find, with a few minor exceptions, that the modified permanent injunction was a sound exercise of the district court’s discretion. We affirm the injunction with a few modifications.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

A. The Parties and Alarm Signaling and Monitoring

Appellant Lisle-Woodridge Fire Protection District (“the District”) is a specific type of municipal entity established by the Illinois Fire Protection District Act (“the Act”), 70 111. Comp. Stat. 705/1 et seq. The District provides fire protection services to residents in the villages of Lisle and Woodridge, Illinois, and other unincorporated parts of DuPage County. Under the Act, the District has the power to set fire codes and to establish standards for fire alarm and dispatching services. 70 111. Comp. Stat. 705/6(i), 705/11. The District funds its work through taxes and is governed by a board of trustees. See 705/14.

The District does not receive fire alarms directly. Rather, fire alarms within the District are received and dispatched by intervening appellant DuPage Public Safety Communications, also known as “Du-Comm.” Du-Comm is an inter-governmental entity made up of 28 member police and fire agencies in DuPage County, including the District. Du-Comm provides emergency dispatch services to those member agencies.

' The plaintiff-appellees are private alarm companies that provide alarm and monitoring services to commercial properties in the District. For example," a warehouse, office building, or apartment complex may contract with an alarm company to install and monitor a building-wide alarm system. That system receives a fire alarm signal at the building’s main alarm board from a smoke detector in the building and then transmits that signal to the local dispatcher to send emergency services. The alarm companies also provide monitoring services: in addition to fire alarm signals, the alarm boards also send “trouble” and “supervisory” signals, which indicate to the alarm companies either that the alarm board is not functioning or that someone at the premises has interfered with the system (e.g., shut off a water valve supplying the sprinkler system). The alarm companies receive the signals at “Central Stations,” which need not be geographically close to the customer’s premises. Often an alarm company will have one company-wide Central Station that it uses to receive and send dispatch signals for all of its customers.

Prior to this litigation, the plaintiff alarm companies provided alarm and monitoring services to their customers as follows: smoke and fire detectors in a building would send a signal to the alarm panel in the building, the alarm panel’s communication device would send a signal to the alarm company’s Central Station, and an operator at the Central Station would make a telephone call to Du-Comm for dispatching. An alternative to this “Central Station” model for fire alarm systems is the “Remote Supervising Station” model in which fire alarm and monitoring signals *859 are transmitted from buildings to a facility other than a Central Station, such as a municipal dispatch board.

B. The 2009 Ordinance

In September 2009, the District passed an ordinance that attempted to overhaul alarm signaling and monitoring in the District. The ordinance required all commercial property owners to terminate their contracts with private alarm companies and instead to adopt and pay for an alarm and monitoring system provided by the District. Under the new system, alarm boards at commercial properties would be equipped with wireless transmitters owned by the District that would transmit alarm, trouble, and supervisory signals to a receiving unit located at the District’s Fire Station 3. The receiving unit at Station 3 would automatically transmit the signals to another receiving unit at Du-Comm, which would then dispatch the relevant emergency response.

The District claimed that it switched to this system, which the District deemed a Remote Supervising Station system, because it was experiencing outages and other problems with the plaintiffs’ private monitoring through Central Stations, including that alarm notifications were delayed and trouble signals indicating outages did not trigger prompt responses. DC-360 at 3; Freeman 265. 1 District officials claimed that the new system would provide two main advantages over the signaling and monitoring provided by the private alarm companies: (1) it was entirely wireless and automated, eliminating the need for a human-operated telephone call from a Central Station to Du-Comm and decreasing the time it took to respond to alarms, and (2) it connected all signals directly to the District’s own board, allowing the District to monitor all signals and to ensure that all outages were addressed.

The District took bids from several companies to set up the system and provide the wireless transmitters.

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724 F.3d 854, 86 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 45, 2013 WL 3927716, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 15632, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/adt-security-services-inc-v-lisle-woodridge-fire-protection-district-ca7-2013.