Sherwood v. Marchiori, No. 22-2859 (7th Cir. 2023)
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In March 2020, Sherwood and Doyle lost their jobs because of the COVID-19 pandemic and applied for unemployment benefits. They never received those benefits, however, and still have not received notice of the denial of their claims or an opportunity for a hearing. Sherwood and Doyle filed a putative class action lawsuit against the Director of the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES), asserting equal protection and procedural due process claims.
The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the suit. Under the “Young doctrine,” which provides an exception to Eleventh Amendment immunity, private parties may sue individual state officials for prospective relief to enjoin ongoing violations of federal law. Even if these plaintiffs had standing to bring the equal protection claims, sovereign immunity bars them; the Young exception does not apply when federal law has been violated only at one time or over a period of time in the past. The plaintiffs alleged a sufficient injury to pursue their procedural due process claims and can invoke the Young exception to sovereign immunity but mandamus provides an adequate state-law remedy in this case.
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