Court Opinion

ID: 9465134
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:36:42.975795+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:59.456856
License: Public Domain

TONE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Although I agree that the Civil Service Commission can be added as a party, not for the purpose of contempt proceedings based on past conduct but for purposes of proceedings to implement the decree, I would affirm on a ground not mentioned by the District Court. Plaintiff apparently has not relied on the 1971 list. If he had, he would have been entitled to relief in 1973 when, after affirmance by this court, the case was returned to the District Court for the granting of appropriate relief. Plaintiff filed, on December 26,1973, a motion to enforce the District Court’s injunctive order of June 7, 1973. In that motion he mentioned only reinstatement and back pay. Subsequently, he was reinstated and recovered back pay. His motion was never ruled upon and after many continuances was ultimately withdrawn without plaintiff ever having raised his entitlement to promotion under the 1971 list. He should be foreclosed from now asserting a right to promotion under that list.
Plaintiff should therefore be limited to reliance on the 1973 list. But he admittedly failed to apply to take the examination on which that list is based, and did not ask in 1973 for temporary relief in the form of an order allowing him to take the examination, with any action based on the results to be withheld pending a decision on the merits. He therefore, in my opinion, is estopped from seeking promotion now. He cannot show that if he had taken the examination he would have earned a sufficiently high grade to be promoted when promotions from that list were made.
It seems to me to be too late now for plaintiff to place himself on the promotion list by taking a qualifying examination. Such examinations are competitive under Illinois law. Ill.Rev.Stat. ch. 24, § 10-1-12 (1975). The results of a new examination would not show how plaintiff’s score on the 1973 examination, if he had taken it, would have compared with the scores of others who took the 1973 test; nor would they show how plaintiff’s score on the new test would compare with the scores of others, if others were to take the same test.
In my opinion, plaintiff is barred by lach-es from seeking additional relief.