National People's Action v. City of Blue Island

594 F. Supp. 72, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17700
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Illinois
DecidedApril 11, 1984
Docket83 C 5726
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 594 F. Supp. 72 (National People's Action v. City of Blue Island) 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
National People's Action v. City of Blue Island, 594 F. Supp. 72, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17700 (N.D. Ill. 1984).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

GETZENDANNER, District Judge:

This action under the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (“§ 1983”), is before the court on the motion for partial summary judgment of plaintiff National People’s Action (“NPA”) against the City of Blue Island (“Blue Island”). NPA challenges the constitutional validity of one of Blue Island’s ordinances, both on its face and as applied. The 1958 ordinance in controversy, entitled “An Ordinance Regulating Peddlers, Solicitors and Canvassers and Providing for Permits and Fees Therefor,” No. 2005, as amended in 1966 by No. 2009, contains several provisions that allegedly violate NPA’s rights under the first and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution. As relief, NPA seeks a declaratory judgment that the ordinance violates the first and fourteenth amendments of the United States Constitution, an injunction enjoining future enforcement of *73 the ordinance, actual damages, costs, and reasonable attorneys’ fees..

Briefly described,, plaintiffs’ allegations charge that on July 25, 1983, NPA agent Amy McGee requested information of Blue Island on how to engage in canvassing, leafletting, petitioning, and soliciting of funds in Blue Island. Several communications between Blue Island officials and agents of NPA ensued in which NPA requested permission to conduct these activities in Blue Island. These communications culminated in a letter from Stan Lukas, president of the Blue Island Chamber of Commerce, denying NPA's request because the city “had been inundated this year with not only our own tag days but also outside requests to canvass our community ____” NPA alleges that but for this enforcement of the ordinance, NPA would engage in leafletting, petitioning, and solicitation of funds in Blue Island.

Plaintiffs move for partial summary judgment “on the issue of liability — the constitutionality of the municipal ordinance in question ...” (Plaintiff’s Motion for Partial Summary Judgment p. 1.) The contents of the 1958 and 1966 documents are not in dispute. (See Memorandum in Opposition pp. 1, 2 nn. 1-2.) Neither is it disputed that Lukas sent the letter denying a permit to NPA on August 2, 1983. (Blue Island Answer ¶ 11.) The contents of that letter are not disputed. (Id.) Blue Island admits that it is an Illinois municipality and that its actions in denying NPA’s request for a permit were taken under color of state law. (Id. at ¶¶ 5, 14.) Indeed, Blue Island admits that the ordinance was unconstitutionally applied to NPA’s request, although it contends that the ordinance is facially constitutional. (Memorandum in Opposition p. 1.) Before the court may inquire into the constitutionality of the ordinance, however, it must address Blue Island’s argument that the case is moot, as no case or controversy is alleged.

Mootness

Blue Island argues that the ease is moot based upon two factual assertions that NPA never denies. First, Blue Island claims to have invited NPA to canvass two days after the present suit was filed. Second, at some time after the suit was filed, Blue Island informed NPA, and now informs the court, that NPA was in fact exempt from the application of the ordinance, and could therefore canvass without a permit. (The ordinance describes the sort of organizations that are exempt from its scope. Incidentally, NPA nowhere alleges or argues that it ever sought to determine whether it was exempt from the ordinance.) As there is no longer a case or controversy, Blue Island contends, the court must dismiss this action.

The Seventh Circuit has recently explained that

A case or controversy may become moot because there is no reasonable expectation that the alleged act will recur, and interim relief or events have completely and irrevocably eradicated the effects of the alleged violation.

Johnson v. Board of Education of Chicago, 664 F.2d 1069, 1071 (7th Cir.1981), rev’d on other grounds, 457 U.S. 52, 102 S.Ct. 2223, 72 L.Ed.2d 668 (1982).

Of course, a defendant’s voluntary cessation of the actions complained of will not moot a controversy, in part because the defendant would otherwise be “free to return to his old ways.” United States v. W.T. Grant Co., 345 U.S. 629, 632, 73 S.Ct. 894, 897, 97 L.Ed. 1303 (1953). It is the defendant’s burden to prove that the offending activity has stopped and will not be repeated before a court may dismiss an action for mootness. Id. at 633, 73 S.Ct. at 897. Even when the defendant has abrogated the policy causing the injury, plaintiff’s case may not be moot as “there can be no assurance that [the defendant] will not resurrect the old procedure in the future. The propriety of injunctive relief cannot be foreclosed by a promise to discontinue what has been an established pattern of wrongdoing.” Boyd v. Adams, 513 F.2d 83, 89 (7th Cir.1975).

In addition, the court must satisfy itself that plaintiff has been accorded full *74 relief. In Black v. Brown, 513 F.2d 652, 654-655 (7th Cir.1975), the Court held plaintiffs claim for an injunction moot, since the injury of .which he complained, being held in a prison isolation cell, had ended. However, the § 1983 action was not dismissed in full, for the plaintiff still had claims for declaratory and monetary relief. Id. When the action under examination for mootness is not a class action, the inquiry centers on whether the particular plaintiff has been accorded a full remedy and assured that, with respect to that plaintiff, the injury will not be repeated. L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law § 3-14, at 64, 67 (1978); but see id. at 64 n. 9. For example, in DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U.S. 312, 94 S.Ct. 1704, 40 L.Ed.2d 164 (1974), plaintiff DeFunis complained he was denied admission to law school on account of his race. As the case made its way through the state court system, DeFunis, who, by order of the trial court, had been admitted to the law school for the year to which he had applied, made his way through law school. At the time the United States Supreme Court heard the case, DeFunis, who had not requested damages or declaratory relief, was in his last year of law school. The law school assured the Court that he would be permitted to finish his studies, whatever the outcome of the case. The Court found DeFunis had been accorded full relief in the interim. The Court explained that the particular action, refusal to admit DeFunis to law school .because of his race, could never again occur to DeFunis:

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594 F. Supp. 72, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17700, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/national-peoples-action-v-city-of-blue-island-ilnd-1984.