On August 24, 2016, two children who were previously detained in the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC) filed this class action lawsuit against a group of Fox companies (collectively “Fox”), Cook County, Illinois, and various officials connected to the JTDC. The case was assigned to Judge Amy St. Eve. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, asked for disgorgement and monetary damages. The plaintiffs, represented by private counsel, brought this case under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that their rights had been violated due to the filming of the hit Fox television show, Empire, at the JTDC.
Specifically, the complaint was brought following the summer of 2015, when the JTDC was placed on lockdown for approximately two weeks so that the detention center could be used as a set to shoot scenes for Empire. The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants knew the children housed at the JTDC would be confined to their cells and pods at the facility to make room for the shooting. Throughout the two weeks, numerous areas, including JTDC's school, its facilities for family visits, and the outdoor recreation yard, were placed off-limits to the children living there.
Plaintiffs alleged that the lockdown was harmful to the children housed at the JTDC because it “interrupted and degraded the rehabilitation and structured programming that is designed to address the problems that brought the children to the JTDC,” including the children’s access to education. The plaintiffs also alleged that the lockdowns were psychologically damaging to the children, as they were forced to sit still in their pods, unable to get up from their chairs without permission, for days at a time.
On October 5, 2016, the plaintiffs amended their complaint to clarify the parties they were suing. The defendants named in the complaint filed motions to dismiss on December 5, 2016. On April 20, 2017, the court denied the motions as to most of the plaintiff’s claims but granted several without prejudice and with leave to re-plead. Specifically, the court denied Cook County and the Chief Judge's Office's motions on four counts and granted without prejudice on one count. As to Fox, the court granted the motion to dismiss on eight counts total, but without prejudice on six and with prejudice on only two. The court gave the plaintiffs leave to amend the claims dismissed without prejudice in a second amended complaint.
On May 23, 2017, the plaintiffs filed this second amended complaint, adding an unjust enrichment claim and attempting to fix the deficiencies in their earlier pleadings. On June 19, 2017, Fox filed a motion to dismiss several of the claims in this complaint as well. On October 16, 2017, the court denied the motion to dismiss as to the claims regarding tortious inducement of breach of fiduciary duty, state law conspiracy, and unjust enrichment. The court granted the motion to dismiss with prejudice as to the other claims. 2017 WL 1425596.
In March 2018, Judge Amy J. St. Eve was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and this case was reassigned to Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer for all further proceedings.
During the subsequent discovery, Judge Pallmeyer granted several motions in the plaintiffs favor, including several motions to compel as well as a partial award of attorneys fees for the litigation of those motions. The plaintiffs moved to certify the class on April 12, 2019. Leading up to the adjudication of that motion, several sealed motions and other filings exist in the docket, the contents of which are not available.
While the class certification motion was pending, the plaintiffs filed for partial summary judgment on December 9, 2019. This motion argued that the Chief Judge, one of the named defendants, was not entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity in this case. Shortly after, in early 2020, the parties entered into settlement negotiations. As of April 13, 2020, these negotiations are presumed to be ongoing.
The court issued an order denying class certification without prejudice on January 16, 2020 due to the plaintiffs failure to meet the requirements of Rule 21(a) and (b). It is unclear as of April 13, 2020 whether the settlement negotiations are seeking relief for just the named plaintiffs or a larger class. This case is ongoing.
Amelia Huckins - 01/26/2017
Rebecca Strauss - 05/24/2018
Alex Moody - 04/13/2020
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