## Facts

- Margaret M. Carver and Randall S. Carmean, former employees of the LaSalle County Sheriff’s Department, sued LaSalle County, the sheriff’s department, and Sheriff Anthony M. Condie, alleging sexual harassment, sex discrimination, equal protection violations, and retaliation under Title VII and 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
- In June 1994, the district court dismissed LaSalle County as a defendant; no Rule 54(b) certification issued, and no appeal was taken from that dismissal.
- Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint naming only Sheriff Condie, asserting the same substantive claims.
- On the eve of trial in August 1996, the parties settled; the court entered a consent decree for $500,000 assessing liability against “Anthony M. Condie, Sheriff of LaSalle County.”
- Plaintiffs sought to collect by serving LaSalle County with a third-party citation to discover assets targeting county funds appropriated for the sheriff’s department.
- The county objected, asserting it was not bound because it had been dismissed and did not agree to the decree.
- The district court concluded the county was no longer a party and could not contest liability in federal court, directing the county to resolve any payment dispute with the sheriff in state court.
- LaSalle County appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether a county previously dismissed as a defendant may nonetheless be obligated to satisfy a federal consent decree entered against a sheriff in his official capacity.
2. Whether the district court erred by refusing to let the county litigate, in federal court, its potential responsibility to fund or satisfy the consent decree.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit reversed the district court’s ruling that the county could not contest liability under the consent decree in federal court.
- The court held the district court acted too quickly by treating the county’s dismissal as dispositive of the county’s potential financial responsibility.
- The court remanded for further proceedings to determine, under federal law and relevant Illinois law, whether the county must satisfy the decree.

## Legal Principles

- A governmental entity’s formal absence from the case caption does not, by itself, resolve whether it may be responsible for satisfying a federal judgment or consent decree arising from official-capacity conduct.
- Federal courts that enter consent decrees in federal-question cases retain authority to interpret, clarify, and enforce them, including deciding which governmental entity must satisfy the decree when that issue is properly presented.
- Determining responsibility for payment may require analyzing: (a) whether the official acted and settled in an official capacity; (b) whether the official’s office functions as an arm of the governmental unit for liability and payment purposes; and (c) how state law allocates funding and responsibility for judgments involving the official’s acts.
- Under Illinois’s governmental structure, sheriffs may be operationally independent yet fiscally dependent on county appropriations, a relationship relevant to assessing who must fund settlements tied to the sheriff’s department.

## Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit held that the county’s earlier dismissal did not automatically bar federal-court consideration of whether the county must fund a consent decree entered against the sheriff in his official capacity, and it returned the case to the district court to decide that obligation under federal and Illinois law.


Carver v. Condie, 169 F.3d 469 (7th Cir. 1999)