Duane Morris Class Action Review - 2023 - Report - Page 109
or party, and government employees were fired for not supporting a favored candidate
or party. The lawsuit resulted in a series of court orders in 1972, 1979, and 1983 that
aimed to abolish political patronage practices.
In 2022, after decades of compliance reports submitted to judges by the defendants, the
court in Shakman, et al. v. Clerk Of The Circuit Court Of Cook County, Case No. 69-CV2145 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 21, 2022), terminated its oversight of the defendants’ hiring
practices. The court determined that the defendants were in substantial compliance with
the requirements of the consent decree orders relative to the hiring, training, and
retention of staff. The obligations in question had begun on May 5, 1972, when a
number of governmental entities in Illinois, including Cook County and its political
subdivisions, entered into a consent decree barring them from “conditioning, basing or
knowingly prejudicing or affecting any term or aspect of government employment, with
respect to one who is at the time already a governmental employee, upon or because of
any political reason or factor.” As such, with the ending of the 50-year consent decree in
2022, it marked the end of the longest-running consent decree in the U.S. federal court
system.
Just as defendants typically seek to terminate obligations under consent decrees,
plaintiffs sometimes seek to extend consent decrees. In 2022, one set of class
members successfully convinced the court to do so in Peoples, et al. v. Annucci, Case
No. 11-CV-2694 (S.D.N.Y. Sep. 30, 2022). Pursuant to their motion for relief from
judgment pursuant to Rules 60(b)(5) and (b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,
the plaintiffs sought a one-year extension of the settlement obligations from a class
action settlement decree that challenged solitary confinement practices in the New York
State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) facilities. In
2016, the parties entered into the Settlement Agreement, which provided that the
plaintiffs would monitor the DOCCS’ compliance with the settlement through various
measures, including four-day facility tours held twice each calendar year, attended by
the plaintiffs' expert, as well as an annual meeting. The tours and meetings proceeded
as planned until the COVID-19 pandemic. The first tour to be held since the onset of
the COVID-19 occurred in September 2021. The plaintiffs approached DOCCS in March
2021 with the proposal to extend the Settlement Agreement by one year. On April 21,
2021, the DOCCS indicated that it did not believe an extension is warranted. It offered
to schedule additional tours during the current year instead. The plaintiffs filed a motion
seeking the court’s intervention. The court determined that the interests of finality did
not pose a barrier the extension of the settlement's monitoring because the plaintiffs
made clear that they are requesting a limited one-year extension to account for the time
lost due to COVID-19. Similarly, the court declined to hold that the defendants will be
prejudiced such that any prejudice should outweigh the reasons for granting the motion.
Based on the clear terms of the settlement agreement and the already-established
practice of facility visits and annual meetings, the defendants anticipated a certain
number of visits, occurring in a certain format (in-person), at certain times of the
calendar year. COVID-19 necessarily changed that expectation temporarily. The court
reasoned that requiring the defendants to partake in the same process to which they
had previously agreed for the commensurate period of time that was missed (one year)
did not significantly prejudice them. The court determined that Rule 60(b)(5) may be
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Duane Morris Class Action Review – 2023
