The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (Court) dismissed a former assistant principal’s claims that she was forced to resign in retaliation for speech about a student discipline matter, which she alleged violated her First Amendment free speech rights and Fourteenth Amendment due process rights.
 
In August 2014, Plaintiff Lisa Ulrey (Ulrey) was employed by Manchester Community Schools (the District) as an assistant principal where her written job description included duties to “coordinate and administer student attendance and discipline policies.” Ulrey learned that the District’s superintendent had granted an adult student permission to possess cigarettes (but not smoke them) on school grounds even though this was prohibited by District policy. Ulrey disagreed with this decision and contacted the School Board president. The School Board president then contacted the superintendent, who rebuked Ulrey for going over his head and threatened to reprimand her if she did not apologize. Ulrey apologized. Three months later, in November 2014, Ulrey was called to a meeting with the superintendent regarding errors with Ulrey’s administrative license. The superintendent requested that Ulrey resign and she did, using a letter of resignation the superintendent had prepared for her. Ulrey’s resignation was promptly approved the School Board.
 
Reviewing these facts, the Court found that Ulrey spoke to the School Board president as an employee pursuant to her official duties, not as a private citizen. As a result, Ulrey’s First Amendment claim failed because her speech was considered constitutionally unprotected as a matter of law. Regarding Ulrey’s Fourteenth Amendment due process claim, the Court noted the general rule that “an employee who resigns – voluntarily relinquishing her interest in continued employment – may not complaint of a lack of due process” unless one of two narrow exceptions exists: 1) constructive discharge, which is akin to a hostile environment work claim, or 2) coerced resignation, which “is characterized by the presence of a Hobson’s choice in which the employee must resign or suffer severe consequences, such as facing criminal charges.” The Court found that neither of these exceptions existed, even if Ulrey thought the superintendent’s “vibes” and “physical demeanor” indicated he wanted to fire her.
 

The Rushville City Council (Council) violated OMA by refusing to let a non-resident member of the public (Requestor) speak during public comment in violation of Section 2.06(g) of OMA.

Requestor submitted a Request for Review to the PAC on August 1, 2019, alleging that the Council violated OMA by refusing to let her speak at its July 1, 2019 meeting during the public comment session. Requestor said that she stood up to speak but the Mayor dismissed her request, saying “no ma' am, I listened to you for two months and you have no standing to be here, you don’t live in this town, you don't vote in this town and you have no reason to be here. I have heard two months of it and I'm not hearing anymore!'" Requestor asked the Council if the Mayor could do this, and one member responded by saying that, “[the Council would] ask for legal [counsel] to see if the Mayor can do this.”
On August 7, 2019, the PAC forwarded a copy of the Requestor’s Request for Review to the Council, asking it to provide a detailed response to Requestor’s allegations, copies of Council rules governing public comment, and copies of the agenda, minutes, and any recordings of the July 1 meeting. The Council did not provide the PAC with its rules governing public comment, and simply stated they adopted Roberts Rules of Order. The Council also acknowledged that it refused to let Requestor speak on July 1 because she was a non-resident.

Though the Council may set rules regarding public comment, Section 2.06(g) clearly states that “[a]ny person shall be permitted an opportunity to address public officials under the rules established and recorded by the public body.” So even if the Council had adopted a rule prohibiting non-residents from speaking, that would have violated OMA. The PAC ordered the Council to refrain from applying unestablished and unrecorded rules to restrict public comment at future meetings, and to refrain from limiting public comment to City residents.

This opinion is binding only to the parties involved and may be appealed pursuant to State law.

The City of Joliet Police Department (Department) violated FOIA by improperly redacting information from narrative sections of police reports. A reporter (Requestor) submitted a FOIA request to the Department for records regarding the arrests of two named individuals on June 3, 2019. A week later, the Department provided the Requestor with copies of records but redacted nearly the entire narrative sections that described the facts observed at the scene of the arrests. The Department relied on multiple FOIA exemptions for its redactions, including Sections 7(1)(b) and 7(1)(c). On June 13, 2019, the Requestor submitted a Request for Review to the PAC contesting the Department’s redactions of the narrative sections. In responding to the PAC’s inquiries, the Department added an assertion that Section 7(1)(a) of FOIA also applied to exempt the narrative sections from disclosure to the Requestor.

Section 7(1)(a) exempts from disclosure any “[i]nformation specifically prohibited from disclosure by federal or State law or rules and regulations implementing federal or State law.” The Department claimed that Supreme Court Rule 415(c) was just such a State law because it states that “any materials furnished to an attorney pursuant to these rules shall remain in his exclusive custody and be used only for the purposes of conducting his side of the case, and shall be subject to such other terms and conditions as the court may provide." The PAC was not persuaded by this argument and found that Rule 415(c) does not specifically prohibit disclosure of the narratives to the Requestor because he is not a criminal defendant seeking discovery materials for his criminal case.

Reviewing the other exemptions claimed by the Department, the PAC found that while the Department properly redacted discreet private information pursuant to Section 7(1)(b), it  improperly relied upon Section 7(1)(c) to redact the narratives because they “document arrests and because arrests are legitimate matters of public interest that outweigh arrestees' privacy rights” and “the Department failed to prove that any information in the narratives discussing the circumstances surrounding the arrests is exempt from disclosure.”
This opinion is binding only to the parties involved and may be appealed pursuant to State law.

The City of Chicago Department of Public Health (Department) violated FOIA by improperly denying a FOIA request using the trade secrets and commercial information exemption of Section 7(1)(g). On March 29, 2019, the Department received a FOIA request for records concerning the amount of manganese that enters and leaves a business’s facility. On April 12, 2019, the Department provided the Requestor with the requested records for four manganese-bearing material providers’ reports.

Later that day, the Department sent an email to the Requestor stating that the request for manganese reports from S.H. Bell were denied, citing Section 7(1)(g) of FOIA, which exempts, “trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person or business where the trade secrets or commercial or financial information are furnished under a claim that they are proprietary, privileged or confidential, and that disclosure of the trade secrets or commercial or financial information would cause competitive harm to the person or business, and only insofar as the claim directly applies to the records requested." The Department’s denial included a statement from S.H. Bell explaining why the information should not be disclosed. On June 9, 2019, the Requestor submitted a Request for Review to the PAC contesting the Department’s withholding of the reports from S.H. Bell.
To withhold a record under Section 7(1)(g), a public body must demonstrate that: 1) the record contains a trade secret or commercial or financial information; 2) it was furnished to the public body by a person or business under a claim of confidentiality; and 3) disclosure of the trade secrets or commercial or financial information would cause competitive harm to that person or business. Because S.H. Bell had submitted its reports to the Department under a claim of confidentiality, the PAC reviewed whether the Department had demonstrated that disclosing the reports would cause competitive harm to S.H. Bell.
Finding no clear and convincing evidence that S.H. Bell would suffer competitive harm, the PAC held that the reports were not exempt from disclosure under Section 7(1)(g) and that the Department violated FOIA by withholding them.

This opinion is binding only to the parties involved and may be appealed pursuant to State law.