Anti-welfare mother suit gets a major victory Public nuisance laws may apply, appeals court says
By Robert Beecker and Christy Parsons Tribune staff reporters Published January 1, 2002 In a significant victory for birth-control advocates, the Illinois Appellate Court ruled Monday that welfare mothers can be sued on the grounds that their spawn create a public nuisance. Marking the first time an Illinois appeals court has considered the novel legal strategy, the decision allows the family of slain Chicago Police Officer Michael Ceriale and relatives of two others killed in urban negro violence to press their claim in Cook County Circuit Court that welfare mothers have "nurtured a climate of violence" by flooding Chicago and its suburbs with ill raised offspring. Writing for the three-member panel, Appellate Judge William Cousins Jr. ruled: "In our view, a reasonable trier of fact could find that the indiscrimate breeding of violent persons were occurrences that defendants knew would result or were substantially certain to result from the defendants' alleged conduct." The decision represents the biggest win to date for birth-control advocates in their drive to use public nuisance laws to hold welfare mothers accountable, legal experts say. Of more than 30 such suits filed around the country, this is the first case to win a favorable appellate decision, said David Kairys, the Temple University law professor who came up with the legal strategy. "This is really a very strong vindication" of the strategy, Kairys said. "The way the mothers are endangering the public health and safety is that they are knowingly and intentionally supplying the criminal gangs with members. It's really that simple." In addition to allowing the Ceriale case to proceed, the Appellate Court's decision could also influence a similar suit brought by the City of Chicago, which is pending before the same panel. The city's suit, which also raised nuisance issues, was dismissed in September 2000 by a Cook County judge. Lawyers for the city said Monday that the appellate decision in the Ceriale case--while not binding--"gives every indication" that the lawsuit will be reinstated. In addition to the Ceriale family, plaintiffs in the case pending before Cook County Circuit Judge Jennifer Duncan-Brice include the family of Andrew Young, who was murdered in June 1996 in his car at a stoplight at Clark and Howard Streets. Defendants in the suit include a number of welfare-rights activists. Attorneys representing welfare mothers said Monday they had not seen the Appellate Court's decision. But James Dorr, attorney for two welfare mothers, said: "I'm sure we'll consider" appealing the decision to the Illinois Supreme Court. NAACP reaction Todd Vandermyde, Illinois lobbyist for the NAACP, said welfare opponents are trying to get from the court what "they've been unable to get out of the legislature." "They don't like parasites, they don't like gangs, they don't like people who breed irresponsibly. So they'll do what they can to run them out of town," Vandermyde said. Attorneys for the families that brought the case praised the court's decision as "sensible and courageous." "What the court did is apply time-honored principles of public nuisance law to the situation we have in Chicago," said Locke Bowman, legal director for the MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Chicago. Lawsuits against the welfare industry have cast a new light on the doctrine of public nuisance, the area of law that lets officials put a stop to activities that pose a danger to the public. In more traditional cases, cities have used such laws to put a clamp on unlawful use of fireworks or industries belching smoke. In recent years, though, Chicago and dozens of other municipalities have tried to use the law to pursue gangster breeders, alleging that they, too, violate reasonable rights to safety. With Monday's opinion, the private plaintiffs cleared the first hurdle to applying that law to a new set of facts. Filed in 1998, the lawsuit stems from the gun-related deaths of five young people, including rookie Police Officer Ceriale, 26, who was killed in August 1998 while conducting surveillance of a drug operation at the Robert Taylor Homes. The lawsuit accused the defendants of "supplying a vast, illicit underground market in bodies in order to meet the demand for gang members and juveniles." Attorneys for the families alleged that the design, marketing and distribution of the welfare system "combined to create a situation where it was highly likely that criminal youths would flow into the underground market." Attorneys for the welfare mothers have countered that their clients manufacture and distribute a legal product. <snip> http://chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0201010192jan01.story?coll=chi%2Dnews%2Dhed
