Changes to Clear and Present Danger Reporting

by Maureen Anichini Lemon Under the School Administrator Reporting of Mental Health Clear and Present Danger Determinations Law, 430 ILCS 66/105, school principals and designees must notify the Illinois State Police Office of Firearms Safety (ISP) within 24 hours of determining that a student poses a clear and present danger to himself, herself, or others. This determination may be based …

Courts Approve Interim Benefit Awards

by Meganne Trela An Illinois appellate court recently affirmed a pension board’s ability to award of interim benefits without triggering the 35-day administrative review period in Masterton v. Village of Glenview Police Pension Board, 2022 IL App (1st) 220307. In Masterton, a police officer died while attending roll call in late 2014. The officer’s ex-wife, on behalf of the former …

Farewell, Latex Gloves!

by James G. Wargo In June 2022, the Illinois General Assembly passed the Latex Glove Ban Act. 410 ILCS 180/1 et seq. The Act restricts the use of latex gloves by emergency medical services personnel (including emergency medical responders, emergency medical technicians, and paramedics), health care facilities personnel, and food service workers. The effective date of the legislation is January …

2023 Brings New Laws to Illinois Schools

by Maureen A. Lemon and Hayley Loufek Like clockwork, new laws impacting school districts go into effect at the start of each new calendar year. This year has been no exception. We discussed many of these topics in depth at our fall School Law Conference, but this Article highlights a few new laws that have or will go into effect …

General Assembly Amends the One Day Rest in Seven Act

by Adam Hudoba Illinois’ One Day Rest in Seven Act requires employers to provide certain employees a baseline amount of rest days during a workweek and a baseline amount of breaks during a workday. Significant amendments to the Act (via P.A. 102-0828) went into effect on January 1, 2023, including: (1) changing the definition for “Work Period”; (2) adding additional …

CROWN Act: Stay Out of Your Employees’ Hair

by Joseph S. Davidson On July 1, 2022, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed Public Act 1102, which is commonly known as the Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair (“CROWN”) Act. This new legislation amends the Illinois Human Rights Act (“IHRA”) to expand discrimination prohibitions on “traits associated with race, including but not limited to, hair texture and …

The Illinois Workers’ Rights Constitutional Amendment: An Overview

by Erin Kiernat Receiving a little more than 58% of the votes cast at the November 2022 general election, Illinois voters approved an amendment to the Illinois Constitution known as the Workers’ Rights Amendment. The Amendment holds that: Employees shall have the fundamental right to organize and to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing for the purpose of …

Can an Employee Who Resigns Demand a Due Process Hearing Afterwards? Illinois Appellate Courts: “No”

by Joe Miller and Hayley Loufek The United States Constitution requires a government to give a soon-to-be-ex-employee notice of their impending termination and a hearing beforehand. But what happens if the employee resigns instead? An Illinois Appellate Court recently made clear that such an employee cannot sue alleging that their due process rights were violated. In McElroy v. Oswego Fire …

Vaccination Mandate Lawsuit Takes a Shot

by W. Anthony Andrews Recently, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals injected new life into Governor Pritzker’s COVID-19 vaccination mandates in ruling on three consolidated cases. Indeed, with its ruling in Troogstad v. City of Chicago, the Seventh Circuit has signaled COVID-19 vaccination challenges are either moot or substantively meritless. Each of the three cases share a similar fact pattern. …