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Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted August 1, 2014*

Decided May 1, 2015

Before

DIANE P. WOOD, Chief Judge

DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge

No. 10-3835

PAMELA J. HARRIS, et al., 

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

BRUCE V. RAUNER, in his official 

capacity as Governor of the State of 

Illinois, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

On Remand from the Supreme Court of 

the United States

No. 10 cv 02477

Sharon Johnson-Coleman,

Judge.

O R D E R

When this case was last before us, we held that plaintiffs, providers of in-home 

care for people with disabilities or health problems, did not have a First Amendment 

right to refuse to pay certain fair-share fees to a union. Harris v. Quinn, 656 F.3d 692 (7th 

* After examining the briefs and record, we have concluded that oral argument is 

unnecessary. Thus the appeal is submitted on the briefs and record. See FED. R. APP. P.

34(a)(2).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

 

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Cir. 2011). This had the effect of affirming the district court’s decision to dismiss Count I 

of the complaint, which presented claims on behalf of personal assistants to customers in 

the state’s Rehabilitation Program. (Count II, which we note briefly below, asserted 

similar claims on behalf of customers in the state’s Disabilities Program.) The Supreme 

Court then granted certiorari and concluded that our judgment had to be reversed in 

part and affirmed in part. Harris v. Quinn, 134 S. Ct. 2618 (2014). With respect to Count I, 

the Court held that the First Amendment does not permit a state “to compel personal 

care providers to subsidize speech on matters of public concern by a union that they do 

not wish to join or support.” Id. at 2623. It concluded that the state’s involvement in the 

terms and conditions of employment for the in-home personal assistants was not enough 

to make the state their employer. It stressed the customer’s control of the assistant’s 

location, training, day-to-day work, discipline, and other aspects of the employment 

relationship. That meant that this court’s conclusion that the case was governed by Abood 

v. Detroit Bd. Of Ed., 431 U.S. 209 (1977), was in error: Abood applies only to public-sector 

employees, and the Court declined to extend it to the circumstances presented in this 

case, where there is state involvement but fundamentally a private employment 

relationship. The Court thus reversed the decision to dismiss the claims of the plaintiffs 

who served customers in the Rehabilitation Program; it affirmed our ruling that the 

claims of plaintiffs who worked in the Disabilities Program (Count II) were not ripe. 134 

S. Ct. at 2644 & n.30. 

As required by Seventh Circuit Rule 54, the parties were given an opportunity to 

address the proper next steps in light of the Supreme Court’s decision. They filed a joint 

statement, in which they recommended that (1) we reverse the district court’s decision to 

dismiss Count I of the complaint and remand that part of the case for further 

proceedings consistent with the Supreme Court’s opinion, and (2) we order the claims 

raised in Count II to be dismissed without prejudice. They also ask us to recognize that 

defendants-appellees Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 73 and 

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 31 

are no longer defendants in the case. We agree with the parties that this is the 

appropriate way to respond to the Supreme Court’s ruling.

In addition, there are some remaining questions about costs and fees. In keeping 

with the Joint Stipulation, we hereby award the Plaintiffs-Appellees 50% of their costs in 

this court pursuant to Circuit Rule 39. With respect to attorney’s fees, we believe that the 

parties’ first suggestion is preferable, namely, to include that issue in the matters 

remanded to the district court and to allow it to consider what fees Plaintiffs-Appellees 

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are entitled to recover for work done both in this court and before the Supreme Court. 

That proceeding may also include fees incurred for work done after remand. 

In summary, we hereby REVERSE the district court’s judgment dismissing Count I 

of the complaint; we REMAND the judgment dismissing Count II of the complaint so that 

the district court can modify it to be without prejudice; and we otherwise REMAND this 

case to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this order.

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