* Center Square…

A state law that limits where lawsuits challenging state laws can be filed has been ruled unconstitutional as applied to a case from Madison County.

Approved last year and signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, House Bill 3062 was opposed by Republicans who said limiting where people can sue the state to just two of the state’s 102 counties is “tyrannical.” The law limits where people can sue the state alleging constitutional violations from state laws or executive orders to just Cook and Sangamon counties.

In Piasa Armory’s challenge to the state’s firearm industry liability law in November, the state motioned to move the case to Sangamon County. Earlier this month, a Madison County judge found the court venue limit law as applied in the case is unconstitutional.

The law “does violate due process, as applied to persons who reside or were injured outside of Cook or Sangamon County,” Madison County Judge Ronald Forest, Jr. wrote. “The motion to transfer is Denied, as [the law] is unconstitutional, as Defendant seeks to apply it.” […]

In its motion to move the case to Sangamon County, the state said the litigants can remote in with video conferencing. Forest said the state could also video conference into Madison County.

“The Court is aware that Supreme Court Rule … allows broad use of video conference or telephone at an evidentiary hearing or trial ‘for good cause shown and upon appropriate safeguards’ or even as of right,” Forest wrote. “However, the availability of remote proceedings does not bolster the State’s argument. The State could also participate in Madison County using the same remote means.”

* Madison County Record…

“Sangamon county is simply inconvenient to plaintiff, inconvenient to plaintiff’s witnesses, and defendant lists no witnesses that Sangamon County would be convenient for,” Foster wrote. “While hardly entitled to any weight, even the location of plaintiff’s counsel is in Madison County. While documents may be relatively easy to move, there is no showing that any relevant documents are anywhere other than Madison County.” […]

In his order, Foster relied upon the Illinois Supreme Court’s ruling in Williams v Illinois State Scholarship Commission, which is the only state court precedent addressing whether a statute fixing venue violated a litigant’s due process rights.

In Williams, Cook County was set as the “exclusive venue” for lawsuits brought against student loan borrowers by the state agency tasked with administering those loans.

The Supreme Court concluded that “the burden of an inconvenient forum, when combined with the indigence of the ‘borrowers’ and other factors, ‘effectively deprived the borrowers of any means of defending themselves in these actions’ and therefore constituted ‘a due process deprivation.’”

Similar to the student loan borrowers in Williams, Piasa Armory demonstrated that both Sangamon and Cook Counties are inconvenient forums.

“As applied to plaintiff in this case, as a practical matter, transferring this action to Sangamon County will deprive it of the ability to put up its best challenge to the constitutionality of [Firearm Industry Responsibility Act],” Foster wrote.

* The Illinois State Scholarship Commission was exclusively filing all collections lawsuits in Cook County against people who defaulted on Guaranteed Student Loans. A lawsuit was filed by a Madison County resident challenging the practice, and then the General Assembly passed a bill to codify it. From the Supreme Court opinion…

In its order granting summary judgment in plaintiffs’ favor, the trial court applied the balancing test set forth in Mathews v. Eldridge (1976), 424 U.S. 319, 334-35, 96 S. Ct. 893, 903, 47 L. Ed. 2d 18, 33, for determining whether a statute or governmental policy violates due process. This test calls for courts to weigh the costs of requiring a particular set of procedures against the benefits derived from the use of those procedures. In particular, the Mathews test consists of three factors: (1) the private interest that will be affected by the official action; (2) the risk of erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and (3) the government’s interest, including the function involved and the fiscal and administrative burdens that the additional or substitute procedural requirements would entail. […]

Because venue is merely a matter of procedure, courts generally cannot interfere with the legislature’s province in determining where venue is proper, unless constitutional provisions are violated. … This court, in fact, has never declared a venue statute unconstitutional. But we have stated that a law fixing venue could be so arbitrary or unreasonable as to deprive defendants of due process. Therefore, after considering the three Mathews factors in light of both the purpose behind the general venue rules in Illinois and general principles of statutory interpretation, we determine that the special venue provision of section 30-15.12 is such an arbitrary and unreasonable statute. […]

In contrast, the only purpose behind the special venue provision of section 30-15.12 is the convenience of ISSC’s legal department and the Attorney General. As we have already discussed, this is inapposite to the purposes of the general venue statute. Thus, the statute in question in the case at bar is not a logical extension of the legislature’s previous pronouncements regarding venue. Also, as we will discuss in the next section, the government actually has no logical reason, besides ISSC’s convenience, to change its venue rules. […]

When we balance our findings under each of the Mathews factors, we conclude that both section 30-15.12 and defendants’ practice of filing all ISSC collection actions exclusively in Cook County violate due process. We admit that, standing alone, requiring venue to be in a particular county does not necessarily infringe upon plaintiffs’ right of access to the courts. However, the burden of an inconvenient forum, when combined with the indigence of the class members, the combined evidence of ISSC’s lack of good faith in allegedly offering nonlitigious means of settling its claims *483 against student borrowers and defendants’ vigorous pursuit of default judgments against class members, and the statute’s lack of provisions for an alternative forum, leads us to conclude that section 30-15.12 and defendants’ practices effectively deprive plaintiffs of any means of defending themselves in these actions. This raises their personal interest to the level of a due process deprivation.

Not a slam dunk either way? I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.

* The governor was asked about the loss yesterday…

My reaction is it’ll obviously run through the court system. I signed it. I think it’s something that makes sense for just organizing the court system. So there’s a lot of venue shopping going on by people who are just trying to find a friendly judge here and there. The experts that are in the two venues that have been designated, seem like they have handled constitution related cases, more than any others and so it makes sense to me that those cases run through there.

…Adding… Leader Curran…

Illinois Senate Republican Leader John Curran (R-Downers Grove) released the following statement in response to this week’s ruling that Governor JB Pritzker’s law that limits individuals challenging the validity of state law in court unconstitutional:

“This is the second bill that Gov. Pritzker has signed into law over the last year that the courts have already found to be unconstitutional. As we get further along in this legislative session, this ruling should be a caution sign for the Governor and his legislative allies to stop with the power grabs that seek to suppress the constitutional rights of Illinois citizens.”