Midwest Community Council, Inc. v. Chicago Park District

87 F.R.D. 457, 30 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 1499, 1980 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13149
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Illinois
DecidedJuly 29, 1980
DocketNo. 79 C 3187
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 87 F.R.D. 457 (Midwest Community Council, Inc. v. Chicago Park District) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Midwest Community Council, Inc. v. Chicago Park District, 87 F.R.D. 457, 30 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 1499, 1980 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13149 (N.D. Ill. 1980).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

CROWLEY, District Judge.

Plaintiffs bring this civil rights action seeking declaratory and injunctive relief under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 2000d. Plaintiffs challenge policies and practices of the Chicago Park District which allegedly result in the disparate allocation of programs, facilities and services in parks servicing wards of the City of Chicago inhabited predominantly by black citizens. Jurisdiction is based on 28 U.S.C. § 1343.

Plaintiffs are Midwest Community Council, a not-for-profit service organization, Hiram and Audrey Wells, members of the Council’s Board of Directors, and individual residents of Wards 24 and 27, two of the affected wards and served by Douglas and Garfield Parks. They seek to represent a class of all “residents of wards of the City of Chicago, Illinois as these wards are constituted by the redistricting ordinance of November 6, 1970, as amended November 15, 1974, which are inhabited by a population of largely Black persons, specifically Wards 2, 3, 4, 6, 16, 17, 20, 24 and 27.”

Defendants are the Chicago Park District, Edmund Kelly, the District’s General Superintendent and various officers and members of the Chicago Park District Board.

The complaint charges defendants with failing to provide equal recreational programs and facilities to areas predominantly populated by blacks. The discriminatory policies and practices are alleged to include allocating greater sums of money and facilities to parks located in wards whose population is largely composed of white persons,1 failing to make repairs to facilities and park grounds in sectional parks located in black neighborhoods, including Douglas, Garfield and Ogden Parks,2 and providing fewer services, such as senior citizen programs, arts and crafts programs and summer day camps, in parks connected to wards in which the proposed class members reside.

Before the Court is plaintiffs’ motion for class certification under Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(b)(2). Defendants strenuously object to the motion, contending that plaintiffs have not established the necessary prerequisites of Rule 23(a) or (b)(2).

Defendants’ first objection attacks the essence of the proposed class. Defendants assert that the class is amorphous and not identifiable.

[460]*460The proposed class is defined by the wards in which its members reside. The affected wards are enumerated, and their geographic boundaries are described in terms of an ordinance that fixes them. Moreover, when, as here, defendants’ alleged policies and practices shape the contours of the class, attacks on its definiteness are not entitled to weighty consideration provided all other requirements for class certification are established. Alliance to End Repression v. Rochford, 565 F.2d 975, 978 (7th Cir. 1977); Illinois Migrant Council v. Pilliod, 540 F.2d 1062, 1072 (7th Cir. 1976) , modified in part on rehearing en banc, 548 F.2d 715 (7th Cir. 1977) (equally divided court).

In order to prevail on this motion, plaintiffs must show that the class is so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable, common questions of law or fact are presented, the claims or defenses of the representative parties are typical of the claims or defenses of the class members and the representatives will provide fair and adequate representation for class interests. Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(a). See Susman v. Lincoln American Corp., 561 F.2d 86, 90 (7th Cir. 1977) ; Valentino v. Howlett, 528 F.2d 975, 978 (7th Cir. 1976). In addition, a class maintainable under Rule 23(b)(2) requires a showing that defendants acted or refused to act on grounds generally applicable to the class so that declaratory and final injunc-tive relief is appropriate to the class as a whole.

Defendants do not explicitly object to the numerosity of the class and indeed to do so would be frivolous. The proposed class consists of all residents of nine wards. The combined estimated population is 455,000 persons. Such a large number of potential claimants makes joinder not only impracticable but virtually impossible.

Defendants argue that plaintiffs have not alleged facts sufficiently specific to establish that there are questions of law or fact common to all members of the class.

The complaint, however, depicts a scenario of city-wide disparities between parks serving largely black sections of the city and parks located in white areas. Where broad discriminatory policies and practices constitute the gravamen of a class suit, common questions of law or fact are necessarily presented. Alliance to End Repression v. Rochford, 565 F.2d 975 (7th Cir. 1977).

Further, we do not agree that there is a paucity of facts on this record. The complaint lists numerous acts which are purported to result in inferior recreational opportunities in black wards. The complaint is supplemented by answers to interrogatories which list the availability and condition of rest rooms, the collection of litter and refuse, maintenance of equipment such as park benches and playground equipment and the upkeep of grass, shrubs and trees among the inferior condition of the parks.

Whether defendants allocate greater sums of money to parks in white areas, whether defendants fail to provide the same programs and services to black wards, whether defendants fail to make repairs of facilities in parks serving black wards and whether, if inferior conditions are found to exist, defendants’ acts were motivated by a discriminatory purpose are questions common to all members of the class. See Johnson v. City of Arcadia, 450 F.Supp. 1363 (M.D.Fla.1978).

The typicality prerequisite requires a comparison of the representatives’ claims with the general claims of the proposed class. See Taylor v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 524 F.2d 263, 270 (10th Cir. 1975). Although only limited discovery has been taken, the allegations of the complaint supplemented by the information contained in the interrogatories establish that the claims are typical.

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Bluebook (online)
87 F.R.D. 457, 30 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 1499, 1980 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13149, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/midwest-community-council-inc-v-chicago-park-district-ilnd-1980.