Judge Denied His Own Proposal To Rule On All Vax-Mandate Cases

CHICAGO ? A federal judge denied a motion that was made at his own request to consolidate three lawsuits challenging local coronavirus vaccine mandates.

Last week, U.S. District Court Judge John Robert Blakey, a Republican presiding over a case filed by attorney Jonathan Lubin challenging Naperville's vaccine requirements, proposed reassigning to his courtroom two other cases filed by the same lawyer on behalf of government workers in Cook County and Chicago.

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Attorneys representing Chicago and Cook County officials last week filed objections to having cases challenging jab mandates issued by separate local governments reassigned to Blakey ? particularly since court rules do not allow "a judge presiding over one case to reassign another case to himself," according to court filings.

"What the hell do you think this Republican judge could be up to?" is how one curious Democrat put it.

Last week, I asked around about the judge's controversial pitch to hear all three cases.

By late Friday, Blakey balked at reassigning the cases after talking with judges John Z. Lee and Robert Gettleman ? who respectively preside over lawsuits Lubin filed against Chicago and Cook County mandates ? and also consulting with the federal court's Executive Committee.

"That was a kind of bizarre twist in all of this," Lubin wrote in a text message. "He first suggested that perhaps the cases should be consolidated, asked me to move to consolidate, and then denied my motion."

While Blakey's written order denied the motion, the judge made it clear that he believes for the sake of saving time and money the trio of court cases could meet the standard for reassigning them to a single judge.

"Certainly, today?s ruling will result in unnecessary complexity and cost, as well as duplicative discovery and motion practice (especially by the common parties in the various cases). But the state defendants have not moved for reassignment and Plaintiffs? counsel chose to assert common claims across multiple lawsuits in the first instance," Blakey wrote. "Thus, to the degree difficulties arise along the way, those most affected have chosen such a path."

In text messages, Lubin said he figured that Blakey might not have foreseen that his reassignment suggestion would meet such vigorous objections from lawyers representing Chicago and Cook County.

Ultimately, Lubin said he wasn't bothered by the decision to keep each case separate from the other.

"Truly, it does not make much difference to me," Lubin wrote. "Judge Blakey is a very good judge. But so is Judge Gettleman, and so is Judge Lee."

When it comes to deciding the legality of vaccine mandates, three judges are better than one.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docuseries on CNN and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary "16 Shots."

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