Illinois Fifth District Appellate Justice Mark Clarke
MADISON COUNTY — A state appeals panel has revived a complaint from the wife of Rob Dorman, the former Madison County information technology director, as she allegedly seeks to obtain the documentary evidence county officials used when deciding to terminate his employment.
The ruling is the latest in a series of legal developments dating to Rob Dorman’s 2020 termination. Since then, according to State’s Attorney Tom Haine, Dorman and former Madison County administrator Doug Hulme have filed 20 lawsuits against the county, city of Edwardsville or county officials. The vast majority ended in rulings favoring defendants.
Haine, who has called the litigation frivolous, reported in September the county spent more than $480,000 defending cases that never advanced beyond the pleading stage, or the very beginning of the case.
Kotomi Dorman filed her suit in November 2022, alleging the county board, sheriff and state’s attorney improperly denied her Freedom of Information Act request from 51 weeks earlier. After Madison County Circuit Court Judge Ronald Motil dismissed that complaint in November 2024, Dorman took the issue to the Illinois Fifth District Appellate Court.
Justice Mark Clarke wrote the panel’s opinion, filed Feb. 10; Justices Mark Boie and Michael McHaney concurred. The order was issued under Supreme Court Rule 23, which restricts its use as precedent. Justice James “Randy” Moore was originally assigned to the panel, along with Boie and McHaney. Following Moore’s retirement on Dec. 31, 2025, Clarke, a former judge, was recalled to service by the Illinois Supreme Court and appointed to serve in Moore’s stead on the Fifth District court.
Clarke also took Moore’s place on the panel hearing Dorman’s appeal.
Dorman’s initial FOIA request sought “electronic/digital copies of the allegations, evidence, what is believed to be misconduct, notice, actions and conduct taken by Doug Hulme and Rob Dorman described in the termination resolution passed by the County Board, supporting the following factual portions of the resolutions.”
Her lawsuit included three identical counts, one each pleaded specifically against the county board, the state’s attorney and the sheriff. A fourth count concerned a January 2022 FOIA request emailed to the state’s attorney’s office seeking copies of emails with words like township, Democrat, precinct or committeeman, and another email the next day adding the words "sample ballot."
In March 2023 the sheriff’s office said Dorman’s allegations were legal conclusions and argued the FOIA barred disclosure of requested materials. The next month the state’s attorney and county board acknowledged Dorman’s initial request and their request for a five-day extension. They claimed they provided all requested documents later that month and agreed it didn’t provide any documents relating to the January 2022 request.
But in July 2023, those offices said the emailed request led to “2,500 emails, with 1,476 identified as potentially responsive records, consisting of over 69,000 pages that contained confidential personal information,” Clarke wrote. The officers said they spent 120 hours compiling, reviewing and redacting the records and asked Judge Motil to agree the request was “unduly burdensome” and therefore exempt from FOIA mandates.
“Neither the motion for relief, nor the record on appeal, contains evidence from the State that it provided the plaintiff an opportunity to confer with it in an attempt to reduce the request to manageable proportions before requesting to invoke” the exemption, Clarke wrote, noting the government instead asked the court to review the documents to assess the exemption request.
In September 2023, Judge Motil denied the exemption and said conducting his own review “would be an inefficient burden on the court’s time.” He instead appointed a special master to review the documents and said Dorman would privately compensate that person, for up to $300 per hour and a $3,000 retainer. That December, Motil issued an order indicating Dorman hadn’t complied.
After several continuances, Motil conducted a November 2024 hearing on the offices’ motion to dismiss Dorman’s lawsuit. At that hearing, the government representatives argued the lack of action was an implicit acknowledgement of the request being onerous.
Attorney Thomas Maag, representing Dorman, argued there is no FOIA provision obligating the person requesting records to pay a for a court-ordered review to benefit the side trying to avoid disclosing information. He further said the government’s lack of response to Dorman’s request was a waiver of their objection to the request as burdensome.
“The circuit court’s appointment of a special master finds no support in FOIA,” Clarke wrote. The panel added that while federal court rules stipulate procedures for such appointments, the Illinois “FOIA contains no comparable authorization, no consent-based framework, and no cost allocation mechanism permitting review expenses to be shifted to a requester.”
The panel further noted that in 1964 Illinois “abolished the offices of fee officers and masters in chancery as part of our judicial system,” and said although a judge has the “inherent authority” to manage a docket, that doesn’t justify a special master appointment — especially given FOIA’s express authorization for a judge to directly review documents when ruling on disclosure.
Beyond substituting a special master for a job the law assigned to judges, Clarke said, Judge Motil erred by shifting the expense to Dorman. The FOIA, he wrote, “expressly permits recovery of fees and costs by requesters who prevail against noncompliant public bodies. Imposing review costs on a requester undermines FOIA’s purpose by creating a financial barrier to the public’s statutory right of access to government records.”
The panel reversed the order dismissing Dorman’s complaint and remanded the case for further proceedings. It ordered Motil to reinstate the complaint and review the documents as necessary. The government defendants can still raise applicable statutory exemptions, but cannot invoke the “burdensome” limit without first offering Dorman an attempt to narrow her request.
