Municipal Liability

Johnson & Bell’s Municipal Liability group has extensive experience defending local villages, townships, cities, school districts, and other state agencies in various state and federal litigation. We defend our clients in suits arising out of general tort and federal civil rights claims, as well as in police misconduct cases, including false arrest, excessive force, Fourth Amendment search and seizure, malicious prosecution, failure to intervene, failure to provide medical attention and failure to provide adequate police services.

The group’s attorneys draw on their previous experiences working as Assistant U.S. Attorney, Assistant Illinois Attorney General, and Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney.

The group has also handled employment discrimination matters, pension and disability disputes, political discharge and retaliation claims, First Amendment licensing issues and those involving preferential treatment by gender, environmental claims, contract disputes, contract bidding disputes, mechanics' lien, and zoning and land use disputes.

Our Municipal Liability group is familiar with the various local and state immunities available to municipalities in the defense of tort claims and has extensive experience in defending claims brought under the various civil rights acts. We have also successfully defended disability, pension and race discrimination cases and have successfully defended school districts in teacher/student sexual harassment cases.

We realize the best option for our clients is not to be involved in litigation on a regular basis. Therefore, our risk management practice focuses on evaluating municipal employment programs and operation procedures to identify potential areas of liability. We also perform seminars to educate municipal risk and operations managers, as well as workers themselves, on a variety of safety and liability topics. These forums help our clients to accurately assess both existing risks and potential liability situations. Johnson & Bell’s Municipal Liability Litigation group has developed a reputation among the defense and plaintiff’s bar as being at the forefront of municipal liability litigation and maintains an excellent reputation at the federal and state trial courts and courts of appeals.

Representative Cases

Argued an Americans with Disabilities Act case involving the alleged discrimination of an employee due to alcoholism before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals after having obtained summary judgment in the federal district court.

Won summary judgment and subsequent appeal in matter where plaintiffs alleged various city officials conspired to deprive plaintiffs of their property by filing and litigating frivolous demolition lawsuits. Plaintiffs sought more than $1 million in compensation.

Represented a city's rights in complex mechanics' lien litigation arising out of a developer’s breach of redevelopment agreement and the city's resulting rights of reversion under the agreement.

Successfully defended a class action lawsuit involving thousands of class plaintiffs challenging a city’s loitering law, settling the matter for less than one percent of plaintiff's demand prior to pretrial.

Obtained dismissal of a city, with prejudice, against an employee claim seeking payment of accumulated sick time, vacation time and monies owed under the Pension Code and Public Employee Disability Act.

Successfully defended city matter brought by the Attorney General’s office alleging various violations of the Illinois Environmental Protection Act on city-owned property.

Represented city interests before the Illinois Commerce Commission in a matter involving various public improvement projects.

Obtained dismissal, with prejudice, of police defendants and other city employees in a case arising out of the warrantless search and seizure of plaintiffs' home.

Obtained dismissal, with prejudice, in a case arising out of the alleged failure to provide adequate police protection and services.

Successfully defended race and age discrimination matters before Illinois Department of Human Rights and Human Rights Commission.

Successfully negotiated a settlement of an alleged improper bid award arising from a municipal waste water treatment project.

Seventh Circuit affirms summary judgment for City where property owners alleged that the city conspired to deprive the owners of their property and retaliated against them for publicly opposing the city. Heath v. City of Harvey, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 8578 (7th Cir. 2007).

Seventh Circuit affirms summary judgment for village in Americans With Disability Act case involving alleged alcohol discrimination against village employee. Conley v. Village of Bedford Park, 215 F.3d 703 (7th Cir. 2000).