Opinion
01-CV-4117
January 3, 2003
OPINION
Plaintiffs have moved to reconsider my December 17, 2002 order granting defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment in favor of defendant Brown with respect to Count II of Plaintiffs' Complaint (the due process claim) based on qualified immunity. For the following reasons, Plaintiffs' Motion for Reconsideration is GRANTED, but their Motion for Summary Judgment is nonetheless still DENIED and defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment GRANTED.
Defendants Lance and Lutz were summarily dismissed from the suit for other reasons.
In their complaint, plaintiffs sued Brown in both her individual as well as official capacity seeking injunctive relief and damages. As pointed out in their motion, plaintiffs are correct that while the finding of the qualified immunity shields Brown from civil damages, it does not shield her in her official capacity from injunctive relief. See Burgess v. Lowery, 201 F.3d 942, 944 (7th Cir. 2000); Hernandez v. O'Malley, 98 F.3d 293, 297 (Cir. 1996); Knox v. McGinnis, 998 F.2d 1405, 1412-13 (7th Cir. 1993). Therefore, to the extent that my order granted Brown qualified immunity in her official capacity thus shielding her from plaintiffs' requested injunctive relief, it was wrongly decided.
Nonetheless, even though Brown is not entitled to summary judgment for qualified immunity reasons, she is still entitled to it for the alternative reason that plaintiffs did not establish a property right in their respective jobs. Wolf v. Larson, 897 F.2d 1409, 1411 (7th Cir. 1990). To establish such a right, they must point to "a specific ordinance, State law, contract or understanding" limiting the ability of the employer to discharge an employee. See Krecek v. Board of Police Com'rs of La Grange Park, 646 N.E.2d 1314, 1318-19 (Ill.App.Ct. 1995). Absent such a limitation, employment is "at will," which under the law does not give rise to a property interest protected under the due process clause. Campbell v. City of Champaign, 940 F.2d 1111, 1112 (7th Cir. 1991).
Plaintiffs are correct that although an employee can be discharged based on political affiliation, he nonetheless may be entitled to due process prior to discharge. Rita v. O'Grady, No. 87 C 2540, 1992 WL 80520, at *12 (N.D.Ill. April 10, 1992). Plaintiffs are mistaken, however, that they specifically were entitled to notice and hearing. Their argument rests on their apparent designation as career service employees, under which they could not be terminated without cause and without a hearing. These protections may have come from past custom and practice of the Pucinksi Administration and/or the Clerk's Rules and Regulations Handbook. However, whether such protections existed for career service employees and from where such protections derived are ultimately irrelevant here because, as plaintiffs acknowledge, Clerk Brown designated them "at will" employees shortly after assuming office, thus taking away their career service designation. Whether she did so for nefarious or noble purposes, it was certainly within her power to do so. And by doing so, she took away from the plaintiffs any procedural protections given to them as career service employees and effectively eliminated any property interest they may have previously held in their jobs. And this elimination of any property interest took plaintiffs out of the realm of due process protection.
Plaintiffs have not challenged the validity of Clerk Brown's action. In fact, to do so would be somewhat hypocritical because if they were ever indeed entitled to procedural protections as career service employees, it was only through Clerk Pucinksi's exercise of the same power exercised by Clerk Brown — that of classifying employees into one of two categories, career service or "at will."