Alvin Boone v. Illinois Department of Corrections

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Argued October 30, 2024
Decided November 12, 2024
Before
MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge
AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge
THOMAS L. KIRSCH II, Circuit Judge
Nos. 23-2630 and 23-2727
ALVIN BOONE, et al.,
Plaintiffs-Appellants, Cross-Appellees,
v.
ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF
CORRECTIONS, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees, Cross-Appellants.
Appeals from the United States District
Court for the Central District of Illinois.
No. 3:21-cv-03229-JES-JEH
James E. Shadid,
Judge.
O R D E R
Once again we consider a challenge to Public Act 102-667, an Illinois statute that
purports to be a “declaration of existing law” rather than “a new enactment.” Because
Public Act 102-667 effected no change in Illinois law, we continue to conclude that the
plaintiffs lack Article III standing to challenge it in federal court. We therefore affirm the
district court’s dismissal of the plaintiffs’ claims challenging Public Act 102-667.
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

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Nos. 23-2630 and 23-2727 Page 2
I
The plaintiffs are Illinois state employees or contractors whose employers
imposed vaccination requirements in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The lawsuit
began in Illinois state court with the plaintiffs alleging that the requirements violated
federal and state law and named their employers and Governor J.B. Pritzker as
defendants. The defendants reacted by removing the action to federal court.
While the action was pending in federal court, the Illinois legislature passed
Public Act 102-667, which added a provision to the Illinois Health Care Right of
Conscience Act. The Conscience Act makes it unlawful “to discriminate against any
person in any manner … because of such person’s conscientious refusal to … participate
in any way in any particular form of health care services contrary to his or her
conscience.” 745 ILCS 70/5. Public Act 102-667 added the following provision:
It is not a violation of this Act for any person or public official, or for any
public or private association, agency, corporation, entity, institution, or
employer, to take any measures or impose any requirements, including,
but not limited to, any measures or requirements that involve provision of
services by a physician or health care personnel, intended to prevent
contraction or transmission of COVID-19 or any pathogens that result in
COVID-19 or any of its subsequent iterations. It is not a violation of this
Act to enforce such measures or requirements. This Section is a
declaration of existing law and shall not be construed as a new enactment.
Id. 70/13.5.
After the passage of Public Act 102-667, the plaintiffs amended their complaint to
add claims challenging the new statute. They did not, however, challenge any of the
original provisions of the Conscience Act.
The district court granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ motion
under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) to dismiss the plaintiffs’ claims for
failure to state a claim. The district court dismissed the plaintiffs’ original claims
challenging the vaccination mandates but opted not to dismiss their new claims
challenging Public Act 102-667. Though the district court concluded that Public Act 102-
667 did not change existing law, it held that additional issues of fact remained.
Following an interlocutory appeal, we determined that the district court’s
conclusion—that Public Act 102-667 did not change existing law—required dismissing
the plaintiffs’ claims for lack of Article III standing. See Boone v. Ill. Dep’t of Corr., 71
F.4th 622, 626–27 (7th Cir. 2023). We did not, however, decide whether Public Act 102-

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Nos. 23-2630 and 23-2727 Page 3
667 changed or merely clarified the Conscience Act—a question that was not before us.
Accepting the district court’s conclusion on that issue, we reversed and remanded with
instructions to dismiss the plaintiffs’ claims challenging Public Act 102-667 for lack of
standing.
On remand, the district court entered a final judgment dismissing the plaintiffs’
claims. The plaintiffs now appeal the dismissal of their claims challenging Public Act
102-667. They do not appeal the earlier dismissal of their claims challenging the
vaccination requirements.
II
In reviewing dismissals for lack of standing, we view the complaint in the light
most favorable to the plaintiffs, accepting all well-pleaded facts as true and drawing all
reasonable inferences in their favor. See In re Recalled Abbott Infant Formula Prods. Liab.
Litig., 97 F.4th 525, 528 (7th Cir. 2024). The plaintiffs’ complaint can survive a motion to
dismiss if it contains factual allegations sufficient to support the inference that standing
exists. See id.
As we explained in resolving the prior interlocutory appeal, whether the
plaintiffs have standing to challenge Public Act 102-667 turns on whether the statute
changed Illinois law. If the statute effected no legal change, then “no harm can flow
from it, and no harm can be remedied by striking it down.” Boone, 71 F.4th at 626. Put
differently, absent a change in the law, the plaintiffs cannot satisfy the constitutional
requirement of establishing they have “suffered an injury in fact … capable of being
redressed through a favorable judicial ruling.” Sweeney v. Raoul, 990 F.3d 555, 559 (7th
Cir. 2021).
The legal effect of Public Act 102-667 is a question of Illinois state law that we
must decide based on “the law of the state” as “declared by its Legislature in a statute
or by its highest court in a decision.” Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 78 (1938).
Illinois’s legislature has declared that Public Act 102-667 does not change the law in any
way—the statute itself provides that it is “a declaration of existing law and shall not be
construed as a new enactment.” 745 ILCS 70/13.5.
Though the Illinois Supreme Court has not addressed the issue, the Illinois
Appellate Court has held in no uncertain terms that Public Act 102-667 has no
independent legal effect. See Glass v. Dep’t of Corr., 203 N.E.3d 986, 993 (Ill. App. Ct.
2022). “Where the Illinois Supreme Court has not ruled on the issue, decisions of the
Illinois Appellate Courts control, unless there are persuasive indications that the Illinois
Supreme Court would decide the issue different.” Nationwide Agribusiness Ins. Co. v.

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Nos. 23-2630 and 23-2727 Page 4
Dugan, 810 F.3d 446, 450 (7th Cir. 2015). The plaintiffs offer no reason for us to conclude
that the Illinois Supreme Court would interpret Public Act 102-667 differently than the
Illinois Appellate Court. Indeed, the plaintiffs do not even address the Illinois Appellate
Court’s decision in their opening brief. The Illinois Appellate Court’s determination that
Public Act 102-667 does not change the law is therefore controlling.
Because, as a matter of Illinois state law, Public Act 102-667 has no independent
legal effect, the statute could not have caused the plaintiffs an injury in fact that is
capable of redress. In these circumstances, the plaintiffs lack Article III standing to bring
their claims challenging the statute in federal court. Ordinarily, a defect in subject
matter jurisdiction like the lack of Article III standing would require remand rather than
dismissal of a removed case like this one. See 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c) (“If at any time before
final judgment it appears the district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction, the case
shall be remanded.”); see also Collier v. SP Plus Corp., 889 F.3d 894, 897 (7th Cir. 2018)
(explaining that “§ 1447(c) require[s] … remand” rather than dismissal, of a case that
“does not satisfy Article III’s requirements”). Here, however, the plaintiffs added the
claims for which they lack standing only after the action had been removed to federal
court. Under these circumstances, dismissal is proper because the claims over which the
subject matter jurisdiction is lacking were never brought in state court in the first place.
On a separate note, the defendants have identified several clerical errors in the
district court’s judgment. The plaintiffs agreed during oral argument that these errors
warranted correction. Accordingly, we grant the district court leave under Federal Rule
of Civil Procedure 60(a) to correct those errors. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(a) (providing that
“while the appeal is pending” clerical mistakes “may be corrected only with the
appellate court’s leave”); see also Wallace v. Mulholland, 957 F.2d 333, 335 n.2 (7th Cir.
1992) (“[R]elief under Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(a) is available at any time for the correction of
clerical errors in the entry of a judgment. It may be granted even after the affirmance of
that judgment by this Court.”).
For these reasons, we AFFIRM the district court’s judgment with leave to correct
any clerical errors that the judgment may contain.

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