Chicago attorney Kevin R. Vodak said police didn't care about his profession when they arrested him at the 2003 Iraq war demonstration that spurred a class-action lawsuit against the city.
"It didn't matter who you were. If you were associated with the demonstrators, you were arrested," said Vodak, who attended the protest as a legal observer for the National Lawyers Guild.
Vodak, the litigation director the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Chicago, serves as a named plaintiff in the lawsuit, which took one step closer to a final resolution this week.
The team of lawyers representing Vodak and his fellow plaintiffs on Thursday said the city agreed to pay $6.2 million to the hundreds of people wrongfully arrested at the March 20, 2003, protest in downtown Chicago. The settlement is contingent upon city council approval, said Roderick Drew, a spokesman for the city's law department.
"The preliminary agreement was reached in order to resolve this longstanding lawsuit, and avoid the expense and risk to Chicago taxpayers of further litigation," Drew said in an e-mail.
Janine L. Hoft, a partner at People's Law Office and one of a handful of the plaintiffs' attorneys, said the city's willingness to settle the suit after nine years feels "somewhat surreal."
"Our clients have very patiently waited for this result," Hoft said. "It's a wonderful and long-awaited result."
Under the preliminary settlement, the city will provide $6.2 million to compensate members of the class-action lawsuit, which Hoft said includes about 700 people, separated into three sub-classes.
Members of the A-3 sub-class include people who were arrested, charged and went to court as a result of the 2003 protest. They will receive up to $10,000 each in the settlement, Hoft said. People were arrested and eventually released without being charged, will get up to $8,750 each as members of the A-2 sub-class.
Hoft said members of the A-1 sub-class will see up to $500 from the settlement. These people were detained on the city's streets for at least 90 minutes. Although the city agreed to settle, she said there is work ahead for the plaintiffs' legal team, all members of the National Lawyers Guild.
"We identified 688 people who at one point gave us contact information," she said. "We want to make sure people who are entitled to compensation are compensated."
Hoft said the plaintiffs' legal team will try to recoup attorneys' fees. She said the team put in "thousands and thousands of hours" on the case.
Hoft said the team hopes to work with the city on the matter, but will file a petition under Section 1988 of the Civil Rights Act if need be.
U.S District Judge Virginia M. Kendall initially dismissed the suit, holding that the police officer defendants were immune from liability because they could not have been expected to know it was illegal to arrest people without ensuring they knew an order to disperse had been issued. Overturning the ruling, U.S. District Judges Richard A. Posner, Diane P. Wood and Lynn S. Adelman said evidence showed protestors did not know a dispersal order had been issued and even if they did, couldn't have left because they were trapped downtown.
Both Hoft and Vodak said the appeals ruling paved the way for the settlement by clarifying the 2003 arrests were unjustified.
They both said they hope the incident taught the city a lesson on the First and Fourth amendments, especially with protests likely to occur in May at the G-8 and NATO summits. Roderick said the Chicago police department already made changes in how it handles demonstrations.