Local Government Law

Dist. Ct. did not err in directing defendant-City to pay $467,973.45 in plaintiff’s attorney’s fees, even though Dist. Ct. had reduced by 70 percent plaintiff’s fee request in plaintiff’s action seeking to require defendant to approve plaintiff’s applications for licenses to operate community center. While plaintiff obtained said licenses as result of instant litigation, plaintiff originally sought up to $2.44 million in damages, which was ultimately reduced to $363,000 demand at end of 9-year period of litigation, prior to plaintiff accepting defendant’s $40,001 offer to settle case. Instant 70 percent reduction in applicable lodestar amount was not abuse of discretion given significant reduction in recovery from plaintiff’s seven-figure demands. Moreover, plaintiff had achieved main objective of obtaining licenses early in litigation process, and thus Dist. Ct. could properly find that plaintiff’s attorneys never had realistic valuation of case, and that parties might have settled case earlier had plaintiff been more concerned with resolving case.

Dist. Ct. did not err in dismissing as moot plaintiff’s request for injunctive relief to prohibit defendant-Village from enforcing its ordinance that required plaintiff to seek special-use permit to operate strip club that sold alcohol, where plaintiff argued that said ordinance violated its First Amendment rights. Plaintiff’s claim for injunctive relief was moot, where some months after defendant had denied plaintiff’s special use permit application, Illinois statute (65 ILCS 5/11-5-1.5) was enacted that would have precluded plaintiff from operating on subject property because it was within 1,000 feet of cemetery, school park, and/or church. As such plaintiff could not obtain any relief, even if it had prevailed in its federal constitutional challenge to defendant’s zoning ordinance. Ct. also rejected plaintiff’s argument that law of case doctrine precluded Dist. Ct. from considering applicability of mootness doctrine, even though different Dist. Ct. judge found that plaintiff had “vested right” with respect to setback provision of defendant’s adult-use ordinance, and Ct. further rejected plaintiff’s claim that it had vested right to operate strip club, because at time plaintiff had applied for special-use permit, defendant’s ordinance expressly forbade plaintiff from operating proposed strip club.

Dist. Ct. did not err in entering judgment in favor of defendants-city officials in plaintiff-city alderman’s action seeking injunction against application of state law that limited number of proposed referenda to three that could appear on any one ballot, as well as order either removing from ballot or stopping implementation of term-limit referenda that effectively precluded plaintiff from seeking fourth term as alderman because he had already reached number of permissible terms. While plaintiff argued that state law creating instant “Rule of Three” limitation on number of referenda violated his First Amendment rights because it precluded him from asking voters to support his proposed fourth referenda seeking to preclude City’s mayor from seeking fourth term, Ct. of Appeals found no First Amendment violation since there is no constitutional right to place referenda on ballot, and ballot is not otherwise public forum for advocating policy. Also, Rule of Three is rationally related to legitimate state objective in simplifying ballot. Ct. also rejected plaintiff’s related class-of-one equal protection claim with respect to defendant’s ordinance limiting terms of alderman, since: (1) ordinance covered all individuals who served beyond stated term limit; (2) plaintiff did not deny that term-limit rules in general are supported by rational basis; and (3) judicial intervention to essentially overturn political practices that are valid in general but bear especially hard consequence for one politician would be inappropriate.