IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

EASTERN DIVISION

ANTHONY MAYS, Individually and on behalf )

of a class of similarly situated persons; and )

JUDIA JACKSON, as next friend of KENNETH )

FOSTER, Individually and on behalf of a class )

of similarly situated persons, )

)

Plaintiffs-Petitioners, )

) Case No. 20-cv-2134

v. )

)

THOMAS DART, Sheriff of Cook County, )

)

Defendant-Respondent. )

PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION AND MEMORANDUM 

IN SUPPORT OF CLASS CERTIFICATION

Plaintiff-Petitioner Anthony Mays and Plaintiff-Petitioner Judia Jackson, as the next 

friend of Kenneth Foster, on behalf of themselves and the classes they seek to represent, hereby 

respectfully request that this Court grant their motion for class certification, appoint them as 

named plaintiffs in this litigation, and appoint their undersigned attorneys as class counsel. 

INTRODUCTION

The spread of COVID-19 throughout the world has created an unprecedented health 

crisis. Public health officials throughout the country have implored the general public to exercise 

social distancing and improved hygiene practices in an effort to curb the threat of the deadly 

virus. But people in Defendant Sheriff Tom Dart’s custody cannot distance themselves from 

others and they cannot exercise improved hygiene. COVID-19 has already infected people in 

Dart’s custody. Dart has failed to take reasonable measures to stop the spread of COVID-19. 

And every single person in his custody faces a risk of death or serious harm as a result. 

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CLASS DEFINITION

This federal class action seeks to require Dart to implement procedures that provide 

reasonable medical care for Plaintiffs and keep them reasonably safe from contracting

communicable disease while in custody. But some people are so vulnerable to COVID-19 that no 

procedures could be implemented fast enough to protect them; these people must be released 

immediately, and they seek a writ of habeas corpus ordering just that. At the same time, some 

people are being housed in units with known exposure to the coronavirus; these people are 

entitled to be transferred to a unit without such exposure. 

Plaintiffs, therefore, seek to certify one class with two subclasses as follows:

• The Whole Class is defined as “all people detained in the Cook County jail who are not 

detained pursuant to a judgment of conviction.” 

• Subclass A is defined as “People in custody who have vulnerabilities that place them in 

heightened risk of contracting serious COVID 19, including persons over the age of 65 

and persons with underlying medical conditions that put them at particular risk of serious 

harm or death from COVID-19, including but not limited to people with respiratory 

conditions including chronic lung disease or moderate to severe asthma; people with 

heart disease or other heart conditions; people who are immunocompromised as a result 

of cancer, HIV/AIDS, or any other condition or related to treatment for a medical 

condition; people with chronic liver or kidney disease or renal failure (including hepatitis 

and dialysis patients); people with diabetes, epilepsy, hypertension, blood disorders 

(including sickle cell disease), inherited metabolic disorders; people who have had or are 

at risk of stroke; and people with any other condition specifically identified by CDC 

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either now or in the future as being a particular risk for severe illness and/or death caused 

by COVID-19”

• Subclass B is defined as “all Class members who are currently being housed on a tier 

where a person with a diagnosed case of COVID-19 is or has been housed.”

BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

Plaintiffs’ suit for injunctive relief under the Fourteenth Amendment, and Subclass A’s 

petition for habeas corpus, arise from Dart’s failure to protect them from the severe risk of death 

or serious physical harm. Those risks effect each Class and Subclass member identically. This 

Court should, therefore, certify the Class and Subclasses. 

The claims of the class and subclasses are ideally suited to proceed as a class action under 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(2) and as an analogous class habeas proceeding under 

Bijeol v. Benson, 513 F.2d 965, 968 (7th Cir. 1975), in which the Seventh Circuit held that “a 

representative procedure analogous to the class action provided for in Rule 23 may be 

appropriate in a habeas corpus action under some circumstances.”1 This is so because (a) every

member of the class and subclasses have the same legal theory as to why their federal rights are 

being violated; (b) Dart’s failure to take reasonable measures to protect them violates the rights 

of every Class member; (c) every Class member will use similar or overlapping evidence in 

support of his or her cause of action; and (d) every member of the class seeks a uniform 

injunction or writ of habeas corpus requiring Dart to take immediate to protect them from a grave 

risk of death or harm. In other words, each representative shares all legal claims with the Class or 

1Although the Supreme Court has not squarely decided whether Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure “is 

applicable to petitions for habeas corpus relief,” on several occasions the Court has decided class action habeas 

petitions. Schall v. Martin, 467 U.S. 253, 261 n.3 & 10 (1984) (declining to address the issue and accepting district 

court’s certification of the class; reversing lower courts’ holding that preventive detention of juveniles was 

unconstitutional); Middendorf v. Henry, 425 U.S. 25, 30 (1976) (declining to decide whether class action habeas 

petitions are cognizable; refusing to grant relief). 

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Subclass she seeks to represent, each Class or Subclass’s evidence will be identical in support of 

those claims, and the Class representatives seek the same relief as the Class or Subclass they 

seek to represent.

In addition to commonality, the class and subclasses easily satisfy the other requirements 

of Rule 23(a), as well as the requirements of Rule 23(b)(2). (The requirements for a class habeas 

proceeding are materially identical. Bijeol, 513 F.2d at 968. Joinder is impracticable because the 

number of people in Dart’s custody exceeds 5,000 on any given day, and each Subclass contains 

hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of people.

The claims of the named Plaintiffs are typical of those of the class as a whole. As the 

supporting declarations to the Complaint make clear, see Complaint, ECF 1, at 17-19, that 

typicality stems from their claim that Dart has placed them at significant risk of harm by failing 

to take appropriate steps to address the high and significant risk of COVID-19 throughout the 

jail.

Named Plaintiffs have no conflicts with the unnamed members of the proposed class. 

Their lawyers are experienced in federal-court civil-rights class actions, particularly those 

involving prisons and jails. Thus, named Plaintiffs and their counsel will adequately represent 

the interests of the proposed class.

Finally, Dart has refused to act in a manner that applies generally to the class as a whole, 

rendering class-wide injunctive relief appropriate under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 

23(b)(2), and a classwide writ of habeas corpus appropriate under Bijeol, 513 F.2d at 968.

ARGUMENT

For a district court to certify a class action, the proposed class must satisfy the 

numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequacy requirements of Rule 23(a) and at least one 

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requirement of Rule 23(b).2 Rosario v. Livaditis, 963 F.2d 1013, 1017 (7th Cir. 1992). Because 

the proposed Class and Subclasses meet all four Rule 23(a) requirements and the requirements of 

Rule 23(b)(2), this Court should certify Plaintiffs’ proposed Class. Rule 23(c)(5) further allows 

for a class to be divided into subclasses, where the subclasses are treated as a class under Rule 

23. See Johnson v. Meriter Health Servs. Emp. Ret. Plan, 702 F.3d 364, 368 (7th Cir. 2012). As 

demonstrated below, each subclass additionally meets all requirements of Rule 23(a) and Rule 

23(b) and this Court should similarly certify each of Plaintiffs’ proposed subclasses. 

I. Plaintiffs Satisfy Rule 23(a): They Are Numerous and Raise Common Questions, 

and the Named Plaintiffs Are Adequate Representatives With Typical Claims.

A. Numerosity is Satisfied: The Class and Subclasses Each Include Hundreds if 

Not Thousands of Members.

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a)(1) requires that the class be “so numerous that 

joinder of all members is impracticable.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(1). “[A] class including more than 

40 members is generally believed to be sufficient.” Barragan v. Evanger's Dog & Cat Food Co., 

259 F.R.D. 330, 333 (N.D. Ill. 2009); Streeter v. Sheriff of Cook Cty., 256 F.R.D. 609, 612 (N.D. 

Ill. 2012) (same); accord William B. Rubenstein, et al., Newberg on Class Actions, § 3:12 (5th 

ed. 2011) (“[A] class of 40 or more members raises a presumption of impracticability of joinder 

based on numbers alone”). Numerosity is easily satisfied here. Dart is currently holding 

approximately 4,770 people in his custody. The threat posed by COVID-19 is such that every 

person in Dart’s custody faces the risk of significant harm. Everyone is at risk of transmission of 

COVID-19. There is no available vaccine to protect against infection from COVID-19 and no 

medications approved to treat it. People in congregate environments such as jails, which are 

2 Because the requirements are materially identical in this context, Plaintiffs refer to Rule 23 as the governing 

standard. See Kazarov v. Achim, No. 02 C 5097, 2003 WL 22956006, at *3 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 12, 2003) (analyzing 

petition for representative habeas action by determining whether the “Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 factors are 

met and that a representative action is appropriate”). 

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places where people live, eat, and sleep in close proximity, face increased danger of contracting 

COVID-19, as already evidenced by the rapid spread of the virus in cruise ships and nursing 

homes. The CDC also warns of “community spread” where the virus spreads easily and 

sustainably within a community where the source of the infection is unknown.

The proposed subclasses also easily meet the numerosity threshold. Subclass A is 

comprised of people who are medically vulnerable to COVID-19 because of underlying medical 

conditions—including people who live with diabetes and asthma, among other conditions. 

People of any age who suffer from certain underlying medical conditions, including lung disease, 

heart disease, chronic liver or kidney disease (including hepatitis and dialysis patients), diabetes, 

epilepsy, hypertension, compromised immune systems (such as from cancer, HIV, or 

autoimmune disease), blood disorder (including sickle cell disease), inherited metabolic 

disorders, stroke, developmental delay, and asthma, are at elevated risk as well. The WHO-China 

Joint Mission Report indicates that the mortality rate from COVID-19 for those with 

cardiovascular disease was 13.2%, 9.2% for diabetes, 8.4% for hypertension, 8.0% for chronic 

respiratory disease, and 7.6% for cancer.3

According to one study, “asthma prevalence is 30%–60% higher among individuals with 

a history of incarceration as compared with the general population.”4 One study estimates that up 

to 15% of people who are in custody have asthma, 10% of people in custody live with a heart 

condition that requires medical care, 10% live with diabetes, and 30% have hypertension.5 Based 

3 Report of the WHO-China Joint Mission on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), World 

Health Organization (Feb. 28, 2020), at 12, available at https://www.who.int/docs/defaultsource/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf (last visited Apr. 1, 2020). 4 Elizabth M. Vigilanto et al., Mass Incarceration and Pulmonary Health: Guidance for 

Clinicians, 15 Ann. Am. Thoracic Soc. 409, 409 (2019). 5 Laura M. Marushack et al., Medical Problems of State and Federal Prisoners and Jail Inmates, 

2011-12, U.S. Dept. of Justice (2014). 

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on these estimates and assuming some overlap in these diagnoses, a fair estimate of the number 

of people who live with one or more of these medical vulnerabilities exceeds one thousand. 

Subclass B is defined as all people who are housed on a tier that is or has been exposed to 

someone with a known coronavirus diagnosis. At the time of the filing of this Motion, at least 

164 detainees and 46 staff members has tested positive for coronavirus. This almost certainly 

underestimates the number of actual cases by a factor of three or four, as explained in the 

contemporaneously filed Complaint and Motion for a Preliminary Injunction. But even if it did 

not, large swaths of the jail have already been exposed to the virus, and must be thoroughly deep 

cleaned in order to be safe for human habitation. Hundreds of people, if not thousands, are 

currently confined in these swaths of the jail. 

The class and subclasses are too numerous for joinder to be considered practicable. 

B. Commonality is Satisfied: The Legality of Dart’s Response to the Pandemic 

Involves Numerous Common Questions of Fact and Law. 

Rule 23(a)(2) requires that “there [be] questions of law or fact common to the class.” Fed. 

R. Civ. P. 23(a)(2). “A common nucleus of operative fact is usually enough to satisfy the 

commonality requirement.” Rosario, 963 F.2d at 1018; Streeter, 256 F.R.D. at 612 (same). “Rule 

23 must be liberally interpreted” and should be read to favor maintenance of class actions, King 

v. Kan. City S. Indus., 519 F.2d 20, 25-26 (7th Cir. 1975); Scholes v. Stone, McGuire & 

Benjamin, 143 F.R.D. 181, 185 (N.D. Ill. 1992) (“[T]he commonality requirement has been 

characterized as a ‘low hurdle’ easily surmounted.”). 

Plaintiffs must demonstrate that there is “some glue” holding the claims together; the 

class claims “must depend upon a common contention” that is “of such a nature that it is capable 

of classwide resolution.” Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 564 U.S. 338, 351 (2011). (“What 

matters to class certification . . . is not the raising of common questions . . . but, rather the 

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capacity of a classwide proceeding to generate common answers . . .”) (citations and quotations 

omitted; emphasis and first ellipsis in original). In many post-Walmart cases, district courts have 

found that systemic constitutional challenges to prison and jail conditions provide the “glue” 

necessary to hold a class together. E.g., Olson v. Brown, 284 F.R.D. 398, 410-11 (N.D. Ind. 

2012) (jail policies and conditions); Ross v. Gossett, 2020 WL 1472072, at *3-4 (S.D. Ill. Mar. 

26, 2020) (unconstitutional practices regarding shakedowns); Rosas v. Baca, 2012 WL 2061694, 

at *3 (C.D. Cal. June 7, 2012) (jail violence case); Jones v. Guzman, 296 F.R.D. 416, 465-66 

(E.D. La. 2013) (jail violence case); Hughes v. Judd, 2013 WL 1821077, at *23 (M.D. Fla. Mar. 

27, 2013) (unconstitutional conditions for juvenile detainees); M.D. v. Perry, 294 F.R.D. 7, 35 

(S.D. Tex. 2013) (foster children facing abuse); Parsons v. Ryan, 289 F.R.D. 513, 516-23 (D. 

Ariz. 2013) (inadequate medical and mental health care in state prisons); Butler v. Suffolk Cnty., 

289 F.R.D. 80, 98 (E.D.N.Y. 2013) (jail sanitation case); Abadia-Piexoto v. United States Dep’t 

of Homeland Sec., 277 F.R.D. 572, 577 (N.D. Cal. 2011) (shackling of detainees during judicial 

proceedings).

As the Supreme Court explained in Wal-Mart, “for purposes of Rule 23(a)(2) [e]ven a 

single [common] question will do . . .” 564 U.S. at 359 (citation and internal quotations omitted; 

alterations in original). Here, Plaintiffs allege that all members of the proposed Class are at 

significant risk of contracting a fatal illness due to Dart’s systemic failure to implement policies 

and practices necessary to protect them. The questions of law and fact common to the class and 

each subclass are the following:

(1) Does COVID-19 present a substantial risk of harm to people in Dart’s custody?

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(2) Does COVID-19 present a risk of harm so severe to some people that the only 

Constitutionally permissible way to protect them is to release them from custody 

immediately?

(3) Do people detained in areas known to be exposed to a deadly pathogen have a right to 

be transferred to another place that is not so exposed? 

Resolving these questions will yield exactly the kind of “common answer” to Plaintiffs’ Eighth 

and Fourteenth Amendment claims that the Supreme Court requires. See Wal-Mart, 564 U.S. at 

351.

An injunctive challenge to a systemic failure to protect class members from significant 

harm is a textbook example of a case that satisfies the commonality requirement and warrants 

class certification. Indeed, “[a] class action is . . . an appropriate vehicle to address what is 

alleged to be a systemic problem.” Coleman v. County of Kane, 196 F.R.D. 505, 507 (N.D. Ill. 

2000) (finding commonality in case against sheriff regarding bond fees). Plaintiffs here 

challenge Dart’s systemic failure to respond reasonably to the deadly threat of COVID-19. The 

commonality requirement is therefore easily met. See Corey H. v. Bd. of Educ. of City of Chi., 

2012 WL 2953217, at *7 (N.D. Ill. Jul. 19, 2012) (“Plaintiffs have attacked . . . systemic failures 

and district-wide policies that apply to every member of the certified class.”).

C. Typicality is Satisfied: The Named Plaintiffs’ Claims are Representative of 

Those of the Class at Large.

Rule 23(a)(3) requires that “the claims or defenses of the representative parties are typical 

of the claims or defenses of the class.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(3). The standard for determining 

typicality is not an identity of interest between the named plaintiffs and the class, but rather a 

“sufficient homogeneity of interest.” See, e.g., Jones v. Blinziner, 536 F. Supp. 1181, 1190 (N.D. 

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Ind. 1982) (citing Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393, 403 n.13 (1975)). “[T]he typicality requirement 

is liberally construed.” Gaspar v. Linvatec Corp., 167 F.R.D. 51, 57 (N.D. Ill. 1996). 

In this case, the claims of the Plaintiffs are typical of the Class and of each Subclasses 

that they represent. See Fonder v. Sheriff of Kankakee County, 2013 WL 5644754, at *6 (C.D. 

Ill. Oct. 15, 2013) (typicality satisfied where “Plaintiff is challenging the same strip search policy 

as the class he seeks to represent”); Olson, 284 F.R.D. at 411 (typicality satisfied where class 

representative and members of proposed class had legal mail opened improperly by correctional 

officers); Inmates of Attica Corr. Facility v. Rockefeller, 453 F.2d 12, 24-25 (2d Cir. 1971)

(finding typicality in lawsuit challenging excessive force by guards, despite individual factual 

differences); Ingles v. City of New York, 2003 WL 402565, at *5 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 20, 2003)

(same); Anderson v. Garner, 22 F. Supp. 2d 1379, 1385 (N.D. Ga. 1997) (finding typicality in 

prison excessive force case even though “when compared to the Plaintiffs’ claims, the unnamed 

class members may have suffered different injuries under different circumstances”). Every

member of the class faces a substantial risk of contracting COVID-19 if immediate measures are 

not implement. Some people, like the medically vulnerable members of Subclass A, are at 

imminent risk of death or severe harm if they are not released. 

Of course “[t]ypical does not mean identical.” Gaspar, 167 F.R.D. at 57; see also De La 

Fuente v. Stokely-Van Camp, Inc., 713 F.2d 225, 232 (7th Cir. 1983) (“The typicality 

requirement may be satisfied even if there are factual distinctions between the claims of the 

named plaintiffs and those of other class members.”), overruled on other grounds, Green v. 

Mansour, 474 U.S. 64 (1985); Muro v. Target Corp., 580 F.3d 485, 492 (7th Cir. 2009) (same). 

Thus, the typicality requirement is satisfied when the representative’s injuries arise from the 

same practice affecting the rest of the class, even if factual differences exist. Streeter, 256 F.R.D. 

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at 612-13 (certifying class of detainees strip searched upon entry to Cook County Jail, despite the 

Sheriff’s argument that there were differences in the circumstances of each search “because the 

likelihood of some range of variation in how different groups of . . . detainees were treated does 

not undermine the fact that the claims of each class [member] share a common factual basis and 

legal theory.” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Areola v. Godinez, 546 F.3d 788, 798 (7th Cir. 

2008) (typicality satisfied where plaintiff was in the “same boat” as other Cook County Jail 

detainees who had been denied crutches); Parish v. Sheriff of Cook County, 2008 WL 4812875, 

at *4 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 24, 2008) (certifying class of Cook County Jail detainees who were denied 

adequate medical care and rejecting the Sheriff’s argument that commonality did not exist 

because “the named plaintiffs’ claims vary as to the type of illness complained of and the type of 

medication at issue”); Bullock v. Sheahan, 225 F.R.D. 227, 230 (N.D. Ill. 2004) (“[p]otential 

factual differences” relating to individual searches held insufficient to defeat typicality in a jail 

strip search case).

The overarching nature of the threat of COVID-19 to every person confined in Dart’s

custody is sufficient to satisfy typicality. For Subclass A, each person claims that she must be 

released because her health is at imminent and immediate risk from the same virus and same 

policy failures as each other person in Subclass A. And for Subclass B, each person claims an 

identical potential exposure to an identical pathogen and seeks identical relief. Both Plaintiffs 

allege that they are (a) in the jail, (b) medically vulnerable, and (c) housed on a tier where 

another detainee has tested positive for coronavirus. These mirror the allegations of the many 

declarants, both those in and recently released from the Jail, who have and are suffering the same 

harms as the Class Representatives—exposure to COVID-19 positive or symptomatic detainees, 

lack of cleaning supplies and sanitizing agents, lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), 

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inability to engage in social distancing or indeed any distancing in dorm and double-celling 

living quarters with shared shower and bathroom areas, a lack of adequate medical care 

including for detainees with symptoms of COVID-19, and a lack of clean shared living spaces. 

In this way, the claims of the Class Representatives are typical of the claims of those they seek to 

represent. See Complaint, ECF 1, at 17-19.

D. The Named Plaintiffs Will Fairly and Adequately Protect the Interests of the 

Class and Subclasses. 

Rule 23(a)(4) requires that “the representative parties will fairly and adequately protect 

the interests of the class.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(4). “This adequate representation inquiry consists 

of two parts: (1) the adequacy of the named plaintiffs as representatives of the proposed class’s 

myriad members, with their differing and separate interests, and (2) the adequacy of the proposed 

class counsel.” Gomez v. St. Vincent Health, Inc., 649 F.3d 583, 592 (7th Cir. 2011). All 

Plaintiffs here are represented by counsel experienced in the protection and enforcement of 

constitutional and statutory rights. Plaintiffs each have a strong personal stake in the proceedings 

that will “insure diligent and thorough prosecution of the litigation.” Rodriguez v. Swank, 318 F. 

Supp. 289, 294 (N.D. Ill. 1970), aff'd, 403 U.S. 901 (1971). 

1. Absence of Conflict within the Class

The two Named Plaintiffs in this case are set forth below:

• Plaintiff-Petitioner Anthony Mays is a detainee in Cook County Jail. He has diabetes and 

had been referred for an evaluation of a heart condition when COVID-19 hit the jail. He 

is housed in Division 8, in an open-dormitory setting. Multiple detainees on his tier have 

been removed after testing positive for COVID-19.

• Plaintiff-Petitioner Kenneth Foster is a detainee at Cook County Jail. This action is 

brought on Mr. Foster’s behalf by his next friend, Judia Jackson. Ms. Jackson is aware of 

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Mr. Foster’s wishes with respect to this action. Ms. Jackson is serving as next friend 

because the undersigned counsel attempted to contact Mr. Foster by telephone within the 

Cook County Jail, but were unable to do so due to the Jail’s operational difficulties 

arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic. See Declaration of Alison Horn (Ex. A). Mr. 

Foster has stomach cancer, Lung-Sarcoidosis, high blood pressure, asthma, and 

bronchitis. He is living in a dorm setting in Division 2. Mr. Foster estimates that five or 

six people from his tier have tested positive for COVID-19. The people who tested 

positive for the virus were removed from the dorm.

Named Plaintiffs have no known conflicts with other class members and they are willing and 

able to serve as named Plaintiffs in this Action. 

2. Adequacy of Representation

Plaintiffs’ counsel are eminently qualified, experienced in conducting federal class action 

litigation, and have adequate resources to undertake the proposed litigation to its resolution. 

Plaintiffs are represented by attorneys from Loevy & Loevy, the Roderick and Solange 

MacArthur Justice Center, and Civil Rights Corps. Counsel’s qualifications are more explicitly 

set forth in the attached declarations. See Declaration of Stephen Weil (Ex. B), Declaration of 

Alexa A. Van Brunt (Ex. C), Declaration of Locke E. Bowman (Ex. D), Declaration of Charles 

Gerstein (Ex. E).

II. Plaintiffs Satisfy Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2): This Case Seeks an Injunction Against and 

Writ of Habeas Corpus Seeking Relief From Conditions that Place the Entire 

Proposed Class at Risk of Serious Illness and Death.

The final requirement for class certification is satisfaction of at least one of the 

subsections of Rule 23(b). Subsection (b)(2) requires that “the party opposing the class has

acted or refused to act on grounds generally applicable to the class, thereby making appropriate

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final injunctive relief or corresponding declaratory relief with respect to the class as a whole.”

Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2). Courts have repeatedly held that civil-rights class actions are the 

paradigmatic 23(b)(2) suits, “for they seek classwide structural relief that would clearly redound 

equally to the benefit of each class member.” Marcera v. Chinlund, 595 F.2d 1231, 1240 (2d Cir. 

1979), vacated on other grounds, 442 U.S. 915 (1979); see also Johnson v. General Motors 

Corp., 598 F.2d 432, 435 (5th Cir. 1979). As stated in the leading treatise on class actions:

Rule 23(b)(2) was drafted specifically to facilitate relief in civil rights suits. Most 

class actions in the constitutional and civil rights areas seek primarily declaratory 

and injunctive relief on behalf of the class and therefore readily satisfy Rule 

23(b)(2) class action criteria.

A. Conte & H. Newberg, Newberg on Class Actions § 25.20 (4th ed. 2002). In addition, the 

Seventh Circuit has recognized that prisoners, because of many factors “may not . . . [be] in a 

position to seek . . . [relief] on their own behalf,” and that this fact militates in favor of class 

certification. United States ex rel. Morgan v. Sielaff, 546 F.2d 218, 222 (7th Cir. 1976). 

Injunctive challenges to prison and jail conditions routinely proceed as class actions. See, 

e.g., Brown v. Plata, 563 U.S. 493, 506 (2011); Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk Cnty. Jail, 502 U.S. 

367, 374 (1992); Jones 'El v. Berge, 374 F.3d 541 (7th Cir. 2004); Bruscino v. Carlson, 854 F.2d 

162, 164 (7th Cir. 1988); Hadi v. Horn, 830 F.2d 779, 781 (7th Cir. 1987); French v. Owens, 777 

F.2d 1250, 1251 (7th Cir. 1985); Jones v. Diamond, 519 F.2d 1090, 1097 (5th Cir. 1975)

(“Realistically, class actions are the only practicable judicial mechanism for the cleansing 

reformation and purification of these penal institutions.”); Kanter v. Casey, 43 F.3d 48, 58 (3d 

Cir. 1994) (noting that subsection (b)(2) “is almost automatically satisfied in actions primarily 

seeking injunctive relief”); Bradley v. Harrelson, 151 F.R.D. 422, 427 (M.D. Ala. 1993) (stating 

that subsection (b)(2) “is particularly applicable to suits such as the one sub judice which involve 

conditions of confinement in a correctional institution”). Here, the practice of high-level officials 

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failing to take reasonable measures to abate the deadly threat posed by COVID-19 places all 

class members at risk of serious illness or death. Rule 23(b)(2) is accordingly satisfied.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiffs respectfully request that the Court the certify the 

Class and Subclasses as defined in this Motion. 

Respectfully submitted,

/s/ Alexa Van Brunt

Counsel for Plaintiffs

Stephen H. Weil

Sarah Grady

Loevy & Loevy 

311 N. Aberdeen

Chicago, IL 60607

Tel: 312-243-5900

Locke E. Bowman

Alexa A. Van Brunt

Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center

Northwestern Pritzker School of Law

375 E. Chicago Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611

(312) 503-0884

Charles Gerstein (pro hac vice application forthcoming)

Alec Karakatsanis (pro hac vice application forthcoming)

Civil Rights Corps

1601 Connecticut Ave NW, Suite 800

Washington, DC 20009

202-894-6128

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CERTIFICATE OF EMERGENCY SERVICE

I, Alexa Van Brunt, an attorney, hereby certify that on April 3, 2020, I caused a copy of 

the foregoing to be filed using the Court’s CM/ECF system. I further certify that I, or another 

one of Plaintiffs’ attorneys, will promptly serve a copy of the same on General Counsel for the 

Cook County Sheriff's Office, as well as the Division Chief and Supervisor of the Special 

Litigation Section, and the Division Chief of the Complex Litigation Division, of the Cook 

County State's Attorney's Office via email.

/s/ Alexa A. Van Brunt

Alexa A. Van Brunt

Case: 1:20-cv-02134 Document #: 6 Filed: 04/03/20 Page 16 of 16 PageID #:113