Illinois Fifth District Appellate Justice Randy Moore
MOUNT VERNON, ILLINOIS - A state appeals panel upheld a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit from the former Madison County information technology director, handing another loss to Rob Dorman in his longrunning legal war with Madison County's government.
The Madison County Board fired Dorman in 2020, also terminating administrator Doug Hulme. Since then, according to State’s Attorney Tom Haine, the men 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 the county spent more than $480,000 defending cases that never advanced beyond the pleading stage, or the very beginning of the case.
At present issue is a case from Dorman alleging Open Meetings Act violations in December 2017 and April 2020. Madison County Associate Judge Ron Motil dismissed the claims with prejudice in July 2024 and three months later ordered Dorman to pay $43,305 in fees and costs. The same day Dorman petitioned to vacate Motil’s sanctions, a motion the judge denied in November.
In response, Dorman asked the Illinois Fifth District Appellate Court to rule Motil erred in dismissing the claims, committed his own Open Meetings Act violation by failing to privately review the verbatim records of the meetings in question, abused discretion by finding sanctions were warranted, violated due process by preventing Dorman’s attorney from letting him review the county’s unredacted invoices and ordered improper payment of legal fees.
Justice James “Randy” Moore wrote the panel’s opinion, filed Sept. 4; Justices Michael McHaney and Mark Boie concurred. The order was issued under Supreme Court Rule 23, which restricts its use as precedent.
The panel said Judge Motil correctly found Dorman’s claims to be filed well past the 60-day limit for Open Meeting Act violations, rejecting his invocation of “the discovery rule and the continuing violation doctrine,” Moore wrote, noting only a state’s attorney can bring an action within 60 days of discovering a violation.
Dorman, Moore wrote, “filed a three-count complaint. In each count, he alleged that defendant violated the Open Meetings Act at one of three meetings that occurred in December 2017 or April 2020. In each count, plaintiff further alleged that defendant violated the Open Meetings Act during the meetings at which it conducted semi-annual reviews of the minutes and records of closed session meetings. Each of the three closed session meetings took place well more than 60 days before plaintiff filed his complaint in December 2022. The last of the semi-annual review meetings occurred on June 15, 2022, which was likewise more than 60 days before plaintiff filed his complaint. Thus, the circuit court correctly determined that plaintiff’s claims with respect to all three closed session meetings and the subsequent semi-annual review meetings were time-barred under the Open Meetings Act.”
Regarding Dorman’s assertion the county violated the law by not conducting a semiannual review meeting in December 2022, the panel noted that meeting happened in January 2023. That meant a judge could no longer grant effective relief, with the panel also noting the law specifies the meetings must happen "every six months, or as soon thereafter as is practicable.” Given late December holidays, the justices said the meeting happened within a reasonable time. Moore also said the panel found “the claims raised in this complaint are identical to the causes of action asserted in two previous cases,” further endorsing Judge Motil’s dismissal.
Moore also wrote that Dorman “sought a writ of mandamus directing defendant to make the minutes and recordings of three meetings public. However, mandamus is not available to compel a public official or public body to reach a particular decision or to exercise its discretion in a specific manner even where there has been an erroneous exercise of discretion. In addition, while the Open Meetings Act authorizes circuit courts to issue a writ of mandamus ‘requiring that a meeting be open to the public,’ mandamus is generally not applicable to meetings that have already occurred.”
The panel also said Motil ably resolved all of Dorman’s claims without a verbatim record of the challenged meetings and, as such, found no error in his declining to review those sessions.
Regarding the sanctions, the panel sided with Motil on three main points: that he properly considered Dorman’s prior litigation; that he correctly applied a court rule instead of the Open Meetings Act’s fee-shifting provision; and that there was due process violation resulting from barring Motil from personally reviewing unredacted invoices.
However, although the panel also said it couldn’t find an error in Motil’s determination the fees government lawyers charged were reasonable, it also couldn’t locate in the record a bases for the amount Motil ordered Dorman to pay.
“Courts should consider factors such as the skill and standing of the attorneys retained, the nature of the case, the novelty or difficulty of the issues involved, the usual and customary charges in the community for similar services and the extent to which there is a connection between the fees charged and the litigation,” Moore wrote. “Because the reasonableness of fees is a factual matter to be proven, it ordinarily requires an evidentiary hearing.”
Although a judge can rely on unrefuted affidavits, Moore continued, “the evidence established that defendant incurred fees of $34,611,” and not $43,305. Dorman didn’t address the discrepancy, but the panel exercised its discretion to do so because “he did generally challenge the propriety of the amount” and a difference of almost $8,700 “is significant.”
While allowing that the actual amount awarded “may have been a mathematical or clerical error,” Moore wrote, and because it’s not clear whether Motil considered if a $210 charge for reviewing jury instructions was proper, the panel remanded the matter for additional findings.
