Idea for FOID class action lawsuit

[Hoplite]

My FOID application is now several months past the legal requirement of issue/deny within 30 days of the application as outlined in the Illinois FOID law.

 

It is obvious that the reason these applications are almost all severely tardy is that there is no penalty to the state or its officers for failing to meet the 30 day deadline. Were there to be a penalty, this would have been resolved a long time ago, or would never have fallen into arrears in the first place, since the State Police supervisors would have had a incentive to ensure that their (civilian) employees or contractors either did a timely job, or were replaced.

 

MY IDEA-

The state FOID statute assigns a specfiic fee ($10 per application) and also assigns a time frame in which the state police are obligated to either approve or deny the FOID application.

Although the statute (as we are all aware) does not specify any penalty in cases where the FOID approval/denial fails to take place within this time frame, at a BARE minimum, its reasonable that the state forfeit the $10 application fee in those cases where it has failed to abide by the time frame laid out within the same statute.

 

This $10 amount is obviously not worth anyone filing suit over in singular instances, but when grouped as a "class" (class action lawsuit) which would be EASILY certified in this case, as all parties suffer a identical wrong/loss and suffer the exact same damages, this $10 amount becomes a highly significant sum of money.

 

I do not know how many Illinoisan's have a FOID card, but if even 10% of the state possess or apply for a FOID card, that equals out to roughly 2.3 Million FOID cards...

which is a potential claim of 23 Million dollars in refunds...

 

I would be MORE than happy to earmark my entire refund to the NRA, to be used for firearm owner adovcacy, advertising etc, as I assume almost all claimants would also agree to.

 

The 23 Million dollar claim could be initially filed as double-damages, asking the state for 46 Milllion dollars in compensation (plus all attorneys fees for the class attorneys) due to its deliberate unwillingness to abide by the law that the state itself has created.

 

This is basically a giant wad of free money that would be fed directly into the NRA and its mission, and best of all, it would be taken from those who, at every twist, turn and opportunity, sought to abridge or undermine our constitutional rights and thumbed their own noses at the law while acting in a official capacity. There is also a Illinois statute of "Official Misconduct" which is a criminal offense when a govt employee or elected office holder fails to execute their official duties. While this is a criminal offense, I see a potential for suing under this statute as well as pertains to those in supervisory positions engaging in willful misconduct pertaining to their duty to either fund/staff the FOID program, or to void the law requiring it.

 

While there is no criminal legal penalty to the state officials under the FOID law, it clearly leaves wide-open a lone option of a hefty civil penalty under the civil courts, which would only really be profitable as a class action. The state and its elected officials and their agents are undeniably aware of the funds they stripped from this mandatory program, and they are well aware that their system does not make any effort to comply with its statutory time deadlines.

 

Why is no one forming a class and taking the state to court on this? It is a virtual guaranteed winner, and we win twice- once with the money damages the class can either recover as a lump sum or sign off on rolling over to the NRA, and secondly by taking this penalty from the state officials who are acting against our interests and passing laws that they do not intend to abide by the terms of.

[Robeman1957]

While I don't disagree with your idea I believe the math to be off. You are assuming that the population of Illinois is about twice what it really is. But if we could get half of what you propose it would go a long way in the fight.

 

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/17000.html

[Hoplite]

While I don't disagree with your idea I believe the math to be off. You are assuming that the population of Illinois is about twice what it really is. But if we could get half of what you propose it would go a long way in the fight.

 

http://quickfacts.ce...ates/17000.html

 

You are absolutely correct. I added a extra ten million population wise.. since this works fine in Chicago elections, I guess I can forgive myself this error as well.

I would be interested in how many people actually possess a FOID or applied for one, and what the overall pct is of the population, as even 10% may be a over-estimate on my part.

 

In any event, even if we are now down to a claim (real damages alone) of 13 million, 26 Million (punitive) double damages, like you said that is still worth taking from them.

[Bud]

You are free to pursue this but why beat up on us here? We are devoted to get getting concealed carry through and having a great of success by following a road map that was described years ago, public awareness, judicial and legislative.

 

I can't begin to tell you how many times I have been told in person, on forums and in responses to my newspaper articles and op-eds that concealed carry would never happen in Illinois.

 

And yet, here we are.

 

If you do a search on Illinolis Carry concerning the FOID and waiting periods, you will find countless discussions about what we are trying to accomplish. The plan is concealed carry, the FOID and the waiting periods, allowance of at least some of the items prohibited by State law and regulated by the National Firearm Act including suppressors, short barrelled long guns among others.

 

If you feel you want to pursue a class action suit then go for it, but brow beating the members about "why not" doesn't make much sense.

 

In my own mind, I am quite happy that the ISP takes months and even years to process a FOID because I believe restricting a constitutionally guaranteed right is well, unconstitutional.

 

I want the FOID gone and as soon as CC passes and becomes law, I will work on getting rid of it and the waiting periods and I am sure, many of the members here will join in to help me and the leadership of Illinois Carry to do just that.

 

and by the way, that "win twice once with the money damages the class (action) can either recover....."

 

How do you figure that as a "win twice" ? Are you not aware of where that money would come from?

[BackForward]

The ISP is violating state law if they take one day over 30 to issue the FOID cards. There has to be 10's of thousands of people that have experienced this violation and it looks like an easy case for any attorney that I hope takes it on.

[Bud]

The ISP is violating state law if they take one day over 30 to issue the FOID cards. There has to be 10's of thousands of people that have experienced this violation and it looks like an easy case for any attorney that I hope takes it on.

 

to do what?

 

Fine them? And who would pay the fine? You and me, the taxpayers.

 

It would be much better to get rid of the FOID, how's that for an idea?

[BackForward]

The ISP is violating state law if they take one day over 30 to issue the FOID cards. There has to be 10's of thousands of people that have experienced this violation and it looks like an easy case for any attorney that I hope takes it on.

 

to do what?

 

Fine them? And who would pay the fine? You and me, the taxpayers.

 

It would be much better to get rid of the FOID, how's that for an idea?

 

Eliminating the FOID would be ideal, but ending it seems unlikely. For the ISP to pay a fine to all the individuals that were involved in the violation of the ISP by waiting over the 30 law should be compensated.

 

We as taxpayers pay their salaries which they as found in the audit are paying ridiculous overtime pay for the 2 or 3 people that are working the system for huge sums of money is insane

[Grey Beret]

I suggest a much more doable solution. I suggest that if the FOID is not delivered within the thirty days, then simply proof of application (ie canceled check) is sufficient to satisfy the legal mandate

[Hoplite]

You are free to pursue this but why beat up on us here? We are devoted to get getting concealed carry through and having a great of success by following a road map that was described years ago, public awareness, judicial and legislative.

 

If you feel you want to pursue a class action suit then go for it, but brow beating the members about "why not" doesn't make much sense.

 

In my own mind, I am quite happy that the ISP takes months and even years to process a FOID because I believe restricting a constitutionally guaranteed right is well, unconstitutional.

 

How do you figure that as a "win twice" ? Are you not aware of where that money would come from?

 

Bud, If I was a attorney, or had contacts with a civil law firm I would do it. The reason I bring the matter here is because I dont have those contacts. You may be "happy" about tens/hundreds of thousands of people spending many months waiting for their card, but you are generally not a reasonable person in my contacts with you, and your total exp consists largely of the fact that you were the former chief of a tiny town that has a total of nine streets in the entire city.

 

The class action suit does not prevent the removal of the FOID act, it actually makes it less attractive to the state to keep in place. If some of our tax money gets transferred to the NRA, you may find this as a negative, but I frankly do not. Effectively, this is simply a refund of a service we already paid for, and did not get what we are entitled to.

 

"If you do a search on Illinolis Carry concerning the FOID and waiting periods, you will find countless discussions about what we are trying to accomplish."

 

what YOU are trying to accomplish is almost entirely to force everyone in the state who wants a CC permit to take a class you get paid for. in our last exchange on this matter, you had laughed about how passing the classes / course is "at the discretion of the instructor" (you) and you quite emphasized the glee you would take at being able to lord such powers over the attendees compelled to take your course (which you were lobbying for here the day after the court decision).

 

Everyone is free to hold their own opinions, and I dont begrudge you yours, but you are no more central to the court decision than anyone else, and you are specifically seeking to force people to go through YOU to actually be able to exercise that "right".

 

If you get your way,.. what we will actually have will be a 'privilege' not a actual 'right'

[vess1]

While I don't disagree with your idea I believe the math to be off. You are assuming that the population of Illinois is about twice what it really is. But if we could get half of what you propose it would go a long way in the fight.

 

http://quickfacts.ce...ates/17000.html

 

You are absolutely correct. I added a extra ten million population wise.. since this works fine in Chicago elections, I guess I can forgive myself this error as well.

I would be interested in how many people actually possess a FOID or applied for one, and what the overall pct is of the population, as even 10% may be a over-estimate on my part.

 

In any event, even if we are now down to a claim (real damages alone) of 13 million, 26 Million (punitive) double damages, like you said that is still worth taking from them.

 

The ISP representative just stated it at the hearing yesterday. He said there are around 1.5 million FOID cards, total, issued in IL at this time. With around 70k applications coming in every month. Combined new and renewals I would guess.

[Bud]

I see one of your vicious little lying attacks was removed before i could respond to it and yet, here you go again.

 

You tell lies on the forum. i never said any of that. I didn't use smiley faces in any thread. I had a ready post to let you know I was going to ignore you in the other thread but yours was removed before i could post.

 

I was the chief of police of a small town when I left working the west side of Chicago for almost all of my career up until then. And when i retired from that, I went back on active duty in the Army at age 40.

 

You obvuiously are a much better 'man' than I am. You obviously have given much more of yourself to your country and your community than I have.

 

I am so ashamed and in such awe of your magnificance, i can't stand it. I will just have to go ahead and ignore any of your future bleeting and other asshatery.

[Hoplite]

I see one of your vicious little lying attacks was removed before i could respond to it and yet, here you go again.

You tell lies on the forum. i never said any of that.

 

Bud, I was going to let this drop till you asumed I was banned and called me a "liar".

Lets remember who the enemy is, its not me.. You have no right to disparage me as telling falsehoods.

You were here the day after the court decision pushing training requirements, and you admitted in that thread that you intend to gain financially from them.

 

I didn't use smiley faces in any thread.

 

No you didn't use A smiley face in A thread,

you used three of them on one single post, let alone thread. Go to post #65 in the thread below.

/THE END

http://illinoiscarry...pic=32337&st=60

 

best wishes.

[Molly B.]

Personal comments removed from this topic. Gentlemen, let's keep to the topic.

[skinnyb82]

Suing the state is like filing a lawsuit against yourself unless you're only asking for relief of non-monetary variety. On a side note, I read something about how like 50% of cardholders actually own guns...or something that was back when Madigan was gonna hand over cardholder data to the AP. But who knows since I read it in an article that I can't seem to find. I know quite a few people (one of my old roommates' whole immediate family has a card but not a single gun) who have a FOID card but no firearms.

 

Here's something from Capitol Fax about the ISP wanting to raise the "fee" to $12 because of the spike in apps. I wonder what it's gonna be in 2021 when mine is up for renewal. So...uh...yeah no comment but here's a link.

 

http://capitolfax.com/2013/02/20/time-for-a-foid-fee-hike/

 

Sent from my SCH-R530U using Tapatalk 2

[DoYouFeelLucky]

1.5 million FOID card holders means that equates to a little less than 12% of the IL population. If you estimate that 30% of the monthly applications are new adds, and do the normal run-rate estimates on a consumer population database, the total number of FOID card holders should be around 2.8 million. Maybe the high rate of attrition of the IL population is skewing it lower?

[retmilitary]

1.5 million FOID card holders means that equates to a little less than 12% of the IL population. If you estimate that 30% of the monthly applications are new adds, and do the normal run-rate estimates on a consumer population database, the total number of FOID card holders should be around 2.8 million. Maybe the high rate of attrition of the IL population is skewing it lower?

 

Could you imagine what we could accomplish if even 25% of the FOID holders were active in the fight for our 2nd amendment rights.

[cbrown1311]

The issue with this, as has been mentioned before, is the way they make up the deficit is by upping the fee. When you sue for 26 million, they ask for a FOID fee of 50 dollars instead of 10. That way they can cover their 12 dollar cost to process as well as the additional 38 to cover the lawsuit. Effectively what you've done is given 26 million to the NRA (assuming everyone gives they're money to the NRA) and decreased the number of people willing to apply for a FOID and therefore decrease the number of firearm owners because they can't afford to pay for the processing fee. Also, they then lobby to have the concealed carry fee upped from 25 to 243 dollars and there you go, paying for it 10 fold in the end.

[RECarry]

Rather than monetary refunds, what about an amendment to the FOID law that automatically registers applicants with the ISRA (who in turn could share membership info with Illinois Carry, etc.)? This idea is similar to the CUB Consumer Utility Board inserts we receive in our electric bills that resulted from a prior lawsuit against ComEd rate increases.

[GAS3987]

The ISP is violating state law if they take one day over 30 to issue the FOID cards. There has to be 10's of thousands of people that have experienced this violation and it looks like an easy case for any attorney that I hope takes it on.

 

to do what?

 

Fine them? And who would pay the fine? You and me, the taxpayers.

 

It would be much better to get rid of the FOID, how's that for an idea?

 

It's been about two months now and FOID hasn't cashed our checks for our address updates.

 

All these problems are reasons to abolish the FOID system.

[Bud]

It's been about two months now and FOID hasn't cashed our checks for our address updates.

 

All these problems are reasons to abolish the FOID system.

 

No other State (except MA) has anything like the FOID. How are tghey able to control the masses?

 

The FOID was a brain storm of the first Mayor Daley who's entire intent was to keep African-Americans from getting guns. It is racially based and mandated by the Chicago Machine .It is unconstitutional and it is the next thing we need to work on and the only fine tuning it needs is to disappear along with the waiting periods

[Yas]

They are the ones that insist on having the special card. Also this data could be cross-referenced with a driver license or DMV issued ID card if the legislators wanted to do it.

 

Remember just a few years back the legislators changed the FOID from 5 to 10 years as a cost savings measure to generate less renewal processing costs by half.

[kevinmcc]

I am all for a class action law suit.

 

FOID is nothing more than a POLL TAX with criminal penalties if you do not possess the card and are excercising your right.

 

If a POLL TAX is not legal, then why can FOID be?

[Hoplite]

Personal comments removed from this topic. Gentlemen, let's keep to the topic.

 

Fairly, you removed all my responses to Buds (substantive) comments, entirely, and left most of Buds responses to me.

 

Bud posted -

 

1)that its effectively like suing yourself to pursue this as a class action, and

 

2)said he "likes it taking months or years for people to get their FOID card" because he apparently feels that a few hundred thousand angry gun owners, few who vote democratic at the state level, will result in the Chicago machine capitulating and throwing out the entire FOID system, or something.

 

I pointed out that it is a refund of what we already paid for a service that we did not actually recieve within the alloted time frame. This system is not going to collapse upon itself by legal action like CC, because its simply not the same thing..

one is a core central tenant of the constitution (CC), while the right of legislatures to place 'reasonable' restrictions on privately owned firearms has been argued in favor of by even Justice Scalia.. whether we like it or not.

 

THIS means that the route to doing away with the FOID is not going to happen through a court, but will require legislative action, and the Madigan controlled legislature is not going to do so unless it becomes a serious hassle and a thorn in their side. They are acutely aware that the entire FOID is a relic of a different time when really almost no one underwent a background check to buy a firearm, and the FOID WAS that background check. Today, its useful to the state really only as a means keep a list of gun owners, but largely irrelevant as a background check since one will be done at the time of sale even for FOID holders in the majority of cases.

 

The dirty secret of the Chicago Madigan machine is, they cannot actually operate without the downstate Dems. If the downstate Dems defect, the Madigan crew no longer has a voting majority on any given bill, and we saw this recently on the Acevedo semi-auto bans..etc..

They are often at odds with most of the downstate Dems in these matters. Downstate Dems are simply NOT going to go along with raising the cost of the FOID to their constituents, nor are they going to take a vote to claw back more money from their constituents to pay for the Madigan crews refusal to fund the FOID system or because the ISP director has sand-bagged his own system.

 

By putting on the pressure of recouping FOID fees through class action, as a late payment penalty, its really the ONLY pressure that you could put on this FOID system that would realistically result in it being viewed as a hassle or detriment to the Madigan crew.

The stance of Bud (and others) seems to be that you will eventually defeat the FOID by filing constitutional challenges 'vis a vis' concealed carry and waiting,... is comparing apples to oranges, because the FOID can likely withstand constitutional and even S.C. challenges, as its legislation that most courts will rule can be overturned by voters at the polls should they wish to do so and will be held as constitutional 'Reasonable' legislative regulation, whether we agree or not (put me down for 'not').

 

Please allow me this ability to clarify my position here as relates to the responses stated herein-

i.e.- conflating hopes of a potential eventual FOID constitutional challenge with being similar to the success of a constitutional challenge to a complete state ban on all permitted Concealed Carry, ignore that these are two completely different 'birds'.

The later had a valid and literal basis in law and precedent, while the former is not likely to be overturned as a unreasonable restriction, Judicially, in my opinion, nor is it likely that the state is going to free itself of the Chicago machine majority anytime soon.

This leaves really only one route which is to make the system costly and unattractive to continue.

[cbrown1311]

"costly and unattractive to continue" applies to the tax payers, not the government. Who do you think pays for the ISP budget? When the class action lawsuit wins and takes 26 million from the budget of ISP, you think somehow the legislature will feel that burden? Even if they do somehow, they'll make up for it by increasing taxes somewhere else, or increasing FOID fees. Like you said yourself, the FOID system is legal and there is not enough support to scratch it, so who ends up on the short end of the stick?

[LightMyFire]

Lawsuit would be a great idea, and an easy win. Think of it this way, the taxes rahm pays would buy you a new firearm. Pretty cool.

[Talonap]

The thing about Class Action suits, is that most of the judgement monies will go to the lawyers.

[Jim Smyth]

When I applied for my Utah CCW they had a time limit in there for issuance. It said if they (Utah) couldn't accomplish the background checks on there end in a certain amount of time that my CCW would be issued. That's exactly what happened. My CCW showed up with a letter stating this is your temporary Utah CCW ID. They said if I didn't hear anything within the next month that this temporary CCW would then convert over to a real CCW. That's also what happened, I never heard another word and was good to go. Maybe if the ISP can't keep up with there end of the Law they need to issue the FOID on a temporary basis and it will become good in 30-60-90 days etc. FWIW I am all in favor of getting rid of the FOID completely......................

[BackForward]

The thing about Class Action suits, is that most of the judgement monies will go to the lawyers.

 

Likely, and at best all those that were part of the 10's of thousands that did not get their cards stated by law within the 30 day requirement may only get their $10 back, but hopefully if the NRA or other group was about it for the purpose, and not greed, more damages could be provided to the people, and most importantly, the FOID system eliminated or substantually overhauled.

 

With the upcoming CCW law, it's also going to be run by the same people doing foid. If people think the 2+ month long waits for a FOID are bad now, just want until the flood of CCW aps come in on top of the FOID.

[C0untZer0]

Its a prior restraint to a right, very similar to a poll tax.

 

The existence of the FOID system gives anti-gun politicians the power to deny Illinois citizens 2A rights simply by defunding or withholding adequate funding.

[Bob22858]

I have been waiting 10 weeks for my card while other people I know applied after me waited 5 to 6 weeks. People running the system need to be held accountable. The law states clearly that you have to be approved or denied within 30 days. If I would ignore a law I'm held accountable so why shouldn't they be.