Page 18 - July2019 FOP Magazine

Victory after all these years
The old saying “The wheels of justice turn slow- ly, but grind exceedingly fine” never rang truer than on June 14, when Judge Michael Mul-
len issued a memorandum opinion and
order putting an end to a two decades-old lawsuit involving the Lodge. A little back- ground...
Nearly 20 years ago, the plaintiffs (a group of disabled police officers) tried to hold the Lodge responsible for the actions of a subcontractor, Callan Pub- lishing, that was hired to raise funds on the Lodge’s behalf. At the time, the attorney general’s office pursued the matter against the subcontractors (not the Lodge) and obtained a
settlement from them.
Not satisfied, in 2003 the plaintiffs filed the underlying liti-
gation to obtain additional amounts from the Lodge (Jackson and Byrne vs. Callan and FOP, Lodge 7, et al, Case No. 03 CH 5765 and 03 CH 10108). The plaintiffs initiated two lawsuits against the Lodge, Callan Publishing and the various entities retained by Callan to conduct fundraising on behalf of the Lodge from individual donors and businesses. The plaintiffs’ argument centered around allegations that the Lodge raised money on their behalf and failed to use the funds raised to benefit the plaintiffs — creating a sort of charitable trust
whose assets, they claimed, belonged exclusively to the plain- tiffs’ classes (which included duty-disabled police officers and wives and families of police officers killed in the
line of duty).
Originally, the Lodge filed motions to dismiss, which
the circuit court initially granted but reversed on ap- peal. From that point forward, the circuit court gave the plaintiffs a lot of leeway to pursue their claims. Although the two pending cases had not been officially consolidated, the court allowed them to proceed along the same course. Due to multiple successful motions to dismiss filed through- out the years, the plaintiffs filed no fewer than six amended complaints to keep the case alive. While most of the Lodge’s attempts to dismiss the cases had been granted, two minor counts still remained — the creation of a charitable trust and unjust enrichment. On Oct. 15, 2018, after the plaintiffs re- fused to accept a reasonable resolution, the cases eventually
proceeded to a bench trial.
The Lodge’s litigators’ main strategy had been to defend the
remaining counts by discrediting the plaintiffs’ accounting and statistics experts. During a fundraising effort by Callan for the FOP, nearly 70,000 donors made contributions. Through discovery, the Lodge learned that the plaintiffs’ statistician ex- pert surveyed only 32 of the donors to prove all of the donors’
PAT FIORETTO
18 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ JULY 2019