ADT Security Services, Inc. et al v. Lisle-Woodridge Fire Protection District, The et al

Filing 186

MEMORANDUM Opinion and Order Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 7/20/2011:Mailed notice(srn, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
ADT SECURITY SERVICES, INC.,
et al.,
Plaintiffs,
v.
LISLE-WOODRIDGE FIRE
PREVENTION DISTRICT, et al.,
Defendants.

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No.

10 C 4382

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
On November 23, 2010 this Court granted a preliminary
injunction against defendants Lisle-Woodridge Fire District
(“District”) and Chicago Metropolitan Fire Prevention Company
(“Chicago Metro”).

In the wake of that ruling, which is now

before our Court of Appeals for review, Plaintiffs1 have filed a
motion for partial summary judgment solely against District,2
asserting claims for violations of various constitutional rights,
antitrust laws and the Illinois law of tortious interference.
Plaintiffs also reiterate their argument that District lacked
statutory authority for its actions, the issue that triggered the

1

“Plaintiffs” comprise Delaware corporation ADT Security
Services, Inc. (“ADT”) and four Illinois corporations: Alarm
Detection Systems, Inc. (“ADS”), D.M.C. Security Services, Inc.,
Illinois Alarm Services, Inc. and SMG Security Systems, Inc.
2

District had earlier moved for a stay of the preliminary
injunction pending resolution of the appeal. On December 28,
2010, in its Case No. 10-3754, our Court of Appeals denied that
motion, stating that District “has not presented arguments that
demonstrate a likelihood of success on appeal or irreparable
injury absent a stay.”

entry of the preliminary injunction.
In Plaintiffs’ view, success on those substantive claims
entitles them to injunctive and declaratory relief against
District in the form of a permanent injunction, as well as
damages.

Needless to say, District has responded with a vigorous

opposition to Plaintiffs’ contentions.

After careful

consideration of both sides’ submissions, this Court grants
Plaintiffs’ motion and orders the issuance of a permanent
injunction for the reasons set forth below.3
Summary Judgment Standard
Every Rule 56 movant bears the burden of demonstrating the
absence of any genuine issue of material fact (Celotex Corp. v.
Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322–23, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265
(1986)).

For that purpose courts consider the evidentiary record

in the light most favorable to nonmovants and draw all reasonable
inferences in their favor (Lesch v. Crown Cork & Seal Co., 282
F.3d 467, 471 (7th Cir. 2002)).

But a nonmovant must produce

more than “a mere scintilla of evidence” to support the position
that a genuine issue of material fact exists (Wheeler v. Lawson,
539 F.3d 629, 634 (7th Cir. 2008)) and “must come forward with
specific facts demonstrating that there is a genuine issue for

3

Chicago Metro has, for its part, submitted its own motion
for summary judgment against Plaintiffs. That motion is
currently pending, as the parties have engaged in a series of
skirmishes relating to the need for discovery and what
constitutes an appropriate statement of facts.
2

trial” (id.).4
Ultimately summary judgment is warranted only if a
reasonable jury could not return a verdict for the nonmovant
(Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct.
2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986)).

What follows is a summary of the

relevant facts,5 viewed of course in the light most favorable to
nonmovant District.
Factual Background
Plaintiffs are companies that sell fire and burglar alarm
monitoring services to commercial buildings and multifamily
residential buildings in the Lisle-Woodridge Fire Prevention
District (Compl. ¶¶2-6).

Plaintiffs monitor those fire alarm

systems pursuant to standards promulgated by District, which is
organized under the Illinois Fire Protection District Act (“Act,”
70 ILCS 705/1 to 705/24).6

All Plaintiffs except ADT transmit

4

At the summary judgment stage, of course, a nonmovant
need not “establish” or “show” or “prove” anything, but must
merely demonstrate that a genuine issue of material fact exists.
This opinion employs those terms only because the cited cases use
that terminology, but it imposes on nonmovant District the lesser
burden described in this footnote.
5

LR 56.1 requires parties to submit evidentiary statements
and responses to such statements to highlight which facts are
disputed and which facts are agreed upon. This opinion cites to
Plaintiffs’ LR 56.1 statement as “P. St. ¶ --,” to District’s LR
56.1 statement as “D. St. ¶ --” and to District’s memorandum of
law as “D. Mem.”
6

All further references to Act provisions will simply take
the form “Act §--,” employing the ILCS section number but
omitting the introductory “70 ILCS 705/.”
3

fire alarm signals to central stations by means of wireless radio
transmitters (P. St. ¶¶2, 9).

In case of a fire alarm, central

station operators alert Dupage Public Safety Communications (“DuComm”), which in turn communicates with District to coordinate
any necessary emergency response (id. ¶10).
ADT, by contrast, uses a phone-based network that transmits
signals to a transmission board at District, which is itself
directly connected to Du-Comm’s fire alarm board (hence the term
“direct connect”)(P. St. ¶¶11, 12).

ADT does not use wireless

technology because a prior ordinance had prohibited central
station monitoring outside the Chicago metropolitan area, while
all of ADT’s central stations are located outside of Illinois
(id. ¶11).
Both types of Plaintiffs’ systems (wireless and telephonic)
were in compliance with national standards and approved by
District (P. St. ¶¶7, 13).

Typically the customers for whom

Plaintiffs have agreed to provide fire alarm monitoring services
have (or had) contracts of a duration of five to seven years,
with provisions for automatic renewal (id. ¶3).
Dissatisfied with the reliability of ADT’s phone-based
system,7 in 2007 District studied the feasability of replacing it
with a wireless radio network and concluded that such action

7

District identifies several problems that it had with
Plaintiffs’ respective monitoring networks at D. St. ¶¶9, 10.
4

would have numerous safety-related and efficiency-related
advantages (P. St. ¶14; D. St. ¶¶11-14).

In September 2009

District’s Board of Trustees adopted and implemented Ordinance
09-06 (the “Ordinance”), which mandated the use of a directconnect wireless (as opposed to phone-based) fire alarm
monitoring network (P. St. ¶34).

That wireless radio system was

to send signals directly to District and thus eliminate the need
for central stations (id. ¶36).
To implement that wireless network, the Ordinance specified
that District would purchase the necessary equipment and a
company of its choice would operate it (Compl. Ex. B).

Subscri-

bers were required to enter into five-year contracts and pay fees
for the provision of that service (id.).

District’s motivation

in passing the Ordinance was self-described as an “effort to
provide better protection against fire” (id.).

District later

entered into a five-year contract with Chicago Metro to install
and then maintain the wireless network (P. St. ¶36; D. St. ¶22).8
Thus District agreed to purchase radios from Chicago Metro and
took out a significant loan to cover the cost of purchasing,
maintaining and monitoring the network (D. St. ¶¶22, 26).
District sent a notice in December 2009 to all affected

8

District had also met with ADS and ADT to discuss the
possibility of implementing a wireless radio network (D. St.
¶15). Each of ADS and ADT then submitted a proposal to provide
such a network, both of which were rejected (P. St. ¶26).
5

customers of fire alarm services, informing them that their
current contracts with other fire alarm companies (hence with any
Plaintiff) were superseded and thus “null and void” (P. St. ¶40).
That notice was accompanied by a written contract under which the
subscriber would have to pay District $66 each month in
monitoring fees (D. St. ¶27).

In January 2010 District sent a

second notice modifying the first, so that alarm monitoring
contracts that were currently in force would be allowed to expire
before the subscriber was required to join the network (P. St.
¶41).

As of June 2010 ADT had lost all of its commercial

accounts in the District, and ADS reported that “several”
accounts had been labeled as terminated by the subscribers before
the expiration of their contracts (id. ¶¶48, 50).

District, for

its part, had over three hundred accounts as of the time of the
Preliminary Injunction order (id. ¶52).
In July 2010 Plaintiffs filed this action against District
and Chicago-Metro for preliminary and injunctive relief.

This

Court granted a preliminary injunction on November 23, 2010, and
in doing so suspended implementation of the Ordinance, reinstated
the customer contracts that had previously been in place and
permitted Plaintiffs to resume fire alarm monitoring services.9

9

On December 15, 2010 this Court issued an Amended
Preliminary Injunction order nunc pro tunc November 23, 2010,
containing only minor modifications.
6

Legal Authority
At base this action turns on whether District, an entity
whose limited powers are granted to it by the General Assembly,
has legal authority to engage in the fire alarm monitoring
business.

That determination depends on a close inspection of

the Act, the enabling legislation that establishes all such fire
protection districts in Illinois.

In that respect District

contends that the necessary authority is conferred by Act §1--the
statutory preamble:
It is hereby declared as a matter of legislative
determination that in order to promote and protect the
health, safety, welfare and convenience of the public,
it is necessary in the public interest to provide for
the creation of municipal corporations known as fire
protection districts and to confer upon and vest in the
fire protection districts all powers necessary or
appropriate in order that they may engage in the
acquisition, establishment, maintenance and operation
of fire stations, facilities, vehicles, apparatus and
equipment for the prevention and control of fire
therein and the underwater recovery of drowning
victims, and provide as nearly adequate protection from
fire for lives and property within the districts as
possible and regulate the prevention and control of
fire therein; and that the powers herein conferred upon
such fire protection districts are public objects and
governmental functions in the public interest.
As District would have it, the plain meaning of that section
authorizes it to engage in the alarm monitoring business because
it is “necessary or appropriate” to “acqui[re]” fire alarm
monitoring equipment to “provide as nearly adequate protection
from fire....”

Indeed, District goes on, it has a legal

obligation to do so, for it has determined that the Ordinance
7

would provide more effective fire protection than the privatelyowned systems that it seeks to displace.
Any such all-encompassing reading of the Act’s preamble is
wholly unpersuasive.

As this Court stated orally on October 6,

2010 and again in its December 22, 2010 Preliminary Injunction
order, Act §1 is not the last--or even the first--word on the
scope of District’s actual authority.

It is not a blanket source

of power, but instead simply authorizes the creation of fire
districts (as its title “Creation authorized” suggests) and
states a general legislative purpose.
And consistent with what one might call the “classic”
structure of statutes that establish different municipal
entities, each possessing limited defined powers, specific grants
of authority are then enumerated in separate sections following
the preamble.

Indeed, the clearly more appropriate (and normal)

reading of such a preamble is that it sets out a general policy
statement, while it is left to the sections that follow to define
specifically what the General Assembly deems “all powers
necessary and appropriate” to carry out that policy--the preamble
itself does not perform that definitional function.
If District’s approach to the contrary were sound, our
statute books would occupy far less space--after all, the broad
and generalized language in an act’s statement of purpose would
render wholly superfluous the particularized enactments of

8

authority that invariably follow the statutory preamble.
Moreover, if District’s contention were correct, that typical
statutory structure would engender confusion and ambiguity:
Would or would not the generalized language of a preamble fill in
the interstices left by the legislature in a later section’s
narrow grant of power so as to confer authorization beyond the
boundaries of the latter provision?
This analysis is of course a matter of logic and right
reason, sources that regrettably do not always inform legal
doctrine.

But in this instance what has just been set out in

logical terms is fully confirmed by a close look at the language
and structure of the Act itself.

Thus both Act §1 and Act §11,

for instance, repeat the identical language as to the obligation
of fire districts “to provide as nearly adequate protection from
fire...as possible” and to regulate “the prevention and control
of fire therein.”

If District were right that Act §1 alone gave

it blanket authority to engage in collateral activities such as
the fire alarm monitoring business, there would have been no need
for Act §11 to set out the same generality and then, even more
importantly, to go on granting specific itemized powers.

Or put

a bit differently, if District correctly viewed Act §1 as a
sweeping grant of power, all of the later (and numerous) sections
of the Act that delineate and confer express powers would be
supererogative.

9

It is abundantly clear that the authority to engage in the
fire alarm monitoring business is not among the specific grants
of power conferred by Act §11.

Importantly, Act §11 gives fire

districts the specific authority to “maintain life saving and
rescue equipment, services and facilities, including an emergency
ambulance service.”

Entering the fire alarm monitoring business

and owning a fire alarm monitoring network are conspicuous by
their absence from that grant of power--what District has sought
to confer on itself here is plainly of a different stripe than
“life-saving and rescue equipment, services and facilities”
(id.).

Nor can it be said that going into the fire alarm

monitoring business is a “necessary regulation[ ] for the
prevention and control of fire therein.”10

Thus District’s

proposed all-inclusive reading of “prevention and control of
fire” falls flat.
District attempts to bolster its position by pointing to Act
§6, which authorizes it to “purchase...personal property,” and to
Act §10a, which provides that it may “sell, lease, or exchange

10

Among the time-honored canons of construction, “noscitur
a sociis” (roughly translated as “it is known by its associates”)
is commonly understood to mean that a word or phrase is given
content by the words immediately surrounding it. To apply that
principle here, “prevention” of fire, when read in conjunction
with “control” of fire, normally refers to the steps that
emergency responders take to prevent and control an actual fire.
Of course, resort to that--or any other--canon of construction is
scarcely necessary in this instance, for the plain meaning of the
statute dictates the same result--that there is an absence of
statutory authority.
10

personalty.”

Neither of those provisions, however, can fairly be

read as enabling District to acquire any kind of “personal
property” or “personalty” that may strike its Trustees’ fancy.
Act §6 speaks only of such property “to be used for the purposes
of the fire protection district”--it does not purport to define
or give content to those purposes.

Instead that portion of a

likewise generic “Organization, powers and duties of board”
statutory section cannot be bootstrapped into a blanket authority
to take over the fire alarm monitoring business.11
District also argues that authority external to the Act
gives it the power to enact the Ordinance.

In particular, it

points to an interpretation of the Illinois Municipal Code
contained in Alarm Detection Sys. v. Vill. of Hinsdale, 326
Ill.App.3d 372, 761 N.E.2d 782 (2d Dist. 2001).

That case, id.

at 377-80, 761 N.E.2d at 787-89 held that a village had the
authority to enact an ordinance requiring that all commercial
buildings connect their fire alarm systems directly to the
village’s fire board.

But that ruling dealt with a wholly

different statute--the Illinois Municipal Code.
In fact Hinsdale, id. at 380-81, 761 N.E.2d at 790
(citations omitted) expressly rejected as irrelevant earlier

11

As for Act §10a, it is frankly absurd to characterize
that provision as bearing on the subject at issue here. Such
grasping at straws (or perhaps more accurately nonexistent
straws) betrays nothing more than the lawyers’ desperation.
11

cases that had been decided under the Act and that read the
powers of fire prevention districts more narrowly:
Fire protection districts are not governed by the
provisions of the Code and are completely separate
legal entities from municipalities. Accordingly, these
cases are of no import in determining the authority of
municipalities.
That ruling is readily understood not only in terms of an
ordinance-authorizing provision relied on by the court there--a
provision contained in the Municipal Code (65 ILCS 5/11-8-2) but
having no counterpart in the Act--but also because of the basic
difference between a municipality, responsible for the general
protection of the lives and safety of its citizens, and a fire
protection district with its narrower focus.

In short, District

seeks to have that case carry more baggage than it can support in
the current context.
District would nonetheless have this Court extend the
Hinsdale case beyond its reach on the premise that to do
otherwise would assertedly endanger those residing in areas
regulated by fire districts.

To that end District seeks to

invoke Maddux v. Blagojevich, 233 Ill. 2d 508, 513, 911 N.E.2d
979, 983 (2009) for the proposition that any construction of the
Act’s provisions must consider the “purpose behind the act and
the ‘evils sought to be remedied, as well as the consequences
that would result from construing it one way or the other.”
Leave aside that such a contention inappropriately converts what

12

a court “may also consider” (the actual Maddux language) into
“must consider”--more importantly, (1) there is no formal
legislative history for the Act, so that District’s suggestion to
consider the “purpose” behind the Act is nothing more than a
bootstrapping invitation to adopt its own views on the subject,
and (2) as Maddux, id. states before that “may also consider”
addendum, the language of a statute itself is generally the best
evidence of legislative intent--and here District can point to no
language in the Act whose plain meaning establishes that District
has the express power to enter the alarm monitoring business.
In direct contrast to the earlier-discussed Hinsdale case,
the Illinois courts that have dealt with fire protection
districts (and that Hinsdale distinguished on precisely that
ground) have rejected efforts by such districts to claim implied
powers to pass ordinances that go beyond the express powers
granted to them in the Act (Glenview Rural Fire Prot. Dist. v.
Raymond, 19 Ill.App.3d 272, 274-76, 311 N.E.2d 302, 304-05 (1st
Dist. 1974) and Wilkes v. Deerfield-Bannockburn Fire Prot. Dist.,
80 Ill.App.3d 327, 333-35, 399 N.E.2d 617, 622-23 (2d Dist.
1979)).
What has been said to this point is both confirmed and well
illustrated by those judicial rejections of powers that had not
been expressly set out in Act §11, followed in each instance by
the legislative action needed to provide express authorization.

13

Thus after Glenview invalidated, for lack of statutory
authorization equivalent to a building code, an ordinance
requiring the installation of certain sprinkler systems, Act §11
was amended to give fire districts the “express power to adopt
and enforce fire prevention codes and standards parallel to
national standards” (Pub. Act. 80-453, effective Oct. 1, 1977).
Similarly, Act §11 was amended to include the authority to
provide an “emergency ambulance service” after Wilkes had held
that such a service was not expressly permitted (Pub. Act.
81-1375, effective Aug. 9, 1980).
Since that time the General Assembly has continued to amend
the Act--even without judicial prodding--to grant fire districts
additional, quite specific powers (see Act §§11(e), (f), (g), (h)
and (i)), the last such amendment having been promulgated as
recently as 2009.

None of this would make any sense (as a matter

of either logic or statutory construction) if District’s
inventive overreaching of the statutes were correct.
District seeks to escape the thrust of those cases and that
history by pointing to a more recent decision in Orland Fire
Prot. Dist. v. Intrastate Piping & Controls, Inc., 266 Ill.App.3d
744, 750-52, 637 N.E.2d 641, 645-46 (1st Dist. 1994), which held
that a fire district had the authority to require the
installation of a sprinkler system, even though the Act nowhere

14

mentions such systems.

But an analysis of that decision reveals

that it does not at all carry the day for District.
It is noteworthy that Orland did not locate the statutory
authority for the sprinkler requirement in Act §11’s provision
relating to the “prevention and control of fire.”

Instead the

Orland court found the authority in the already-referred-to
“express power to adopt and enforce fire prevention codes and
standards parallel to national standards.”

Here, of course, the

power to enforce a fire code that is parallel to national
standards has nothing to do with the issue at hand.
Just so, no provision in the Act even arguably gives
District the authority to own, to the exclusion of others, and
operate a fire alarm monitoring network.

And on that score

Orland provides District no traction whatever.12
Perhaps even more significantly, look at the sharp contrast
between requiring owners to install sprinkler systems--the issue
in Orland--and what is at issue here.

District is not merely

imposing a fire-prevention-related requirement on the citizenry
within the jurisdiction that it serves--instead it is injecting
itself into the business end of that requirement by making itself
the sole source of an essential part of that requirement.

12

Does

District also points to a section of the Illinois
Administrative Code dealing with fire alarm monitoring (83 Ill.
Adm. Code §785.45) , but that provision of an administrative
regulation obviously cannot serve as an express grant of
authority to fire districts.
15

District suggest for a moment that the Orland court would have
sanctioned an ordinance that not only required the purchase of a
sprinkler system but also required that the purchasers buy their
systems from District itself or from a source that gave a cut to
the Orland Fire District, rather than from any source competing
for the sprinkler business in the free market?

That has to be

understood as the paradigm case of the rhetorical question,
permitting only one answer:

No way.

On the most basic level, District gives impermissibly short
shrift to the principle that fire districts have only those
powers that are expressly granted to them by the legislature-and, by extension, that they have no implied powers (see
Glenview, 19 Ill.App.3d at 274, 311 N.E.2d at 304).

Relatedly,

statutes that confer powers on entities such as fire districts
are strictly construed, with any doubts being resolved against
those bodies (id., quoting City of Chicago v. Ingersoll Steel &
Disc Div. of Borg-Warner Corp., 371 Ill. 183, 186, 20 N.E.2d 287,
288 (1939)).
District seeks to turn that dynamic on its head by invoking
the public-safety rationale and insisting that it has carte
blanche to engage in any activity--including any anticompetitive
and self-aggrandizing activity--that bears some relationship to

16

fire prevention.13

But it does not slight the importance of the

role that fire protection districts play in protecting residents
and properties from fire to find that such concerns must not be
conflated with (and be permitted to overshadow) the fundamental
question of statutory authority.

By the same token, District

misfires when it argues that other fire districts may have
entered into similar arrangements.

Without further input as to

the particulars of such other situations and as to whether they
have survived judicial scrutiny, the naked fact that they may
exist elsewhere in Illinois cannot be evidence that District has
acted within its statutory authority.
Other Counts
In addition to their argument as to the absence of statutory
authority, Plaintiffs move for summary judgment on five other
counts, which respectively charge violations of rights conferred
by the United States Constitution’s Contracts Clause and its
Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses,
monopolization and attempted monopolization under Sherman Act §2
and tortious interference with contract and business expectancy.

13

For their part, Plaintiffs urge the applicability of Act
§11f(b), which prohibits the collection of fees from residents
for fire-protection services, as an alternative basis for finding
that District exceeded its statutory authority. That argument
has force, but for the present it is sufficient to view it as
buttressing the more fundamental issue of the absence of legal
authority that forms the basis of this opinion.
17

Those additional counts present complex questions of fact and
law, and there is no need to grapple with them here.14
Permanent Injunction Order
Plaintiffs moving for a permanent injunction must make
essentially the same showing as that required for a preliminary
injunction, except that they must demonstrate actual success on
the merits instead of a mere likelihood of success (Amoco Prod.
Co. v. Vill. of Gambell, 480 U.S. 531, 546 n.12 (1987)).
Although neither side’s present submissions have analyzed the
factors to be considered before issuing a permanent injunction
(or have even remarked upon the test itself), the preliminary
injunction order here dealt with them in detail in concluding
that injunctive relief was warranted.15

What has been said in

this opinion readily confirms that the factors required for a
permanent injunction have been satisfied.
First and foremost, Plaintiffs have plainly succeeded on the
merits.

Second, damages are inadequate because Plaintiffs have

not only lost current customers but also stand to lose future

14

This should not be mistaken as an indication that those
claims lack merit. On the contrary, many of the additional
counts present colorable (or more than colorable) claims for
relief.
15

For over 25 years this Court has referred to Judge
Posner’s opinion in Roland Machinery Co. v. Dresser Industries,
Inc., 749 F.2d 380, 386-88 (7th Cir. 1984) for a thorough
discussion of the standards for ruling on requests for
preliminary injunctions, and that granted in this case was no
exception.
18

customers in consequence of their having been barred from fire
alarm monitoring in the District.

Third, the equities are in

Plaintiffs’ favor because they have lost or will lose their fire
alarm monitoring business, while District was never in that
business in the first place (and, to boot, does not have the
authority to displace Plaintiffs in that capacity).

And fourth,

while this Court respects District’s interests in protecting
people and property from fire, the fact remains that before
adoption of the Ordinance, Plaintiffs had in place fire alarm
monitoring services that were in compliance with national
standards and approved by District.
Conclusion
Plaintiff’s motion for partial summary judgment against
District is granted on the ground that District lacked the
requisite statutory authority to pass the Ordinance and displace
Plaintiffs from the fire alarm monitoring business.

Accordingly,

Plaintiff’s request for a permanent injunction is granted, the
Ordinance is hereby invalidated and District is enjoined from any
activity relating to its implementation and enforcement (in terms
of the Clerk’s Office’s docketing system, this ruling grants Dkt.
136 and perforce denies Dkt. 140, Metro’s motion for summary
judgment).
It would appear that a formal permanent injunction order
should adopt and implement Paragraphs 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12,

19

13, 14 and 15 found on pages 11-16 of the November 23, 2010
Preliminary Injunction order.

Counsel for the parties are

ordered to meet and confer forthwith with a view to the swift
submission of a joint proposal if possible, or separate proposals
reflecting any differences between them, embracing those
paragraphs (unless a reason is tendered for the omission of any
of them) and any others deemed appropriate in light of this
opinion.

Finally, a status hearing is ordered to be held at

8:45 a.m. August 2, 2011 to discuss the future course of this
litigation.16

________________________________________
Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge
Date:

July 20, 2011

16

As a consequence of this ruling, District’s April 11,
2011 Dkt. 156 motion for leave to file an amended answer adding
two new affirmative defenses (common law privilege and tort
immunity) is denied as moot. Apart from questions as to whether
and to what extent any such common law privilege subsists and
might apply to District’s conduct in this case, no privilege may
permit District to take actions for which it has no statutory
authority. And the question of tort immunity is similarly
inapposite, given the ground for the present ruling, for tort
liability is simply not now at issue.
20