## Facts

- Illinois enacted the Chicago School Reform Act of 1988, restructuring governance of Chicago’s public schools through decentralization and new elected bodies.
- The Act created local school councils (LSCs) at individual schools. Each LSC consisted of the school principal plus 10 elected members: six parents of currently enrolled students, two community residents, and two teachers.
- The Act allocated voting rights differently depending on a resident’s status and location: parents of enrolled students could vote for the six parent seats, while residents without enrolled children could vote only for the two community resident seats.
- The Act also treated residents differently based on whether their residence fell within a single school attendance area or within more than one attendance area; residents in multi-area locations had reduced or no voting rights for certain LSC seats compared to similarly situated residents in single-area locations.
- LSCs exercised meaningful governmental authority at the school level, including selecting the school principal for a four-year contract, deciding on renewal, evaluating principal performance, and approving school budget plans.
- The Act created additional governance layers tied to the LSC elections, including subdistrict councils and a school board nominating commission involved in the selection process for members of the Chicago Board of Education.
- Plaintiffs included (1) Chicago public-school principals/administrators affected by changes to principal employment terms and (2) Chicago residents who were registered voters and property-owning taxpayers who funded the schools.
- Plaintiffs filed an action in the Circuit Court of Cook County seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging (among other claims) that the Act’s election scheme violated equal protection because votes were not equally weighted among resident taxpayers.
- Defendants answered and moved for summary judgment on an expedited schedule. Before the summary-judgment motion was fully briefed and heard, plaintiffs moved to voluntarily dismiss under section 2-1009 of the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure, indicating they wished to pursue federal litigation.
- The circuit court denied the motion for voluntary dismissal and then granted summary judgment for defendants, upholding the Act. Plaintiffs took a direct appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether the circuit court properly denied plaintiffs’ motion for voluntary dismissal under 735 ILCS 5/2-1009 after defendants had filed and were pressing a dispositive summary-judgment motion.
2. Whether the Act’s election and voting structure for LSCs and related bodies violated equal protection and one-person-one-vote principles by giving different voting power to different classes of Chicago residents (including distinctions based on parental status and attendance-area status) for bodies exercising governmental functions.
3. Whether replacing principals’ prior tenure expectations with four-year renewable performance contracts unconstitutionally impaired contract rights or deprived principals of property without due process.

## Decision

- The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the denial of plaintiffs’ motion for voluntary dismissal under section 2-1009.
- The court held that key parts of the Act’s voting scheme for electing members to school governance bodies violated equal protection/one-person-one-vote requirements because the elected entities exercised governmental power yet the statute assigned unequal voting rights and weights among similarly situated resident taxpayers.
- The court rejected the principals’ constitutional challenges to the Act’s shift to four-year renewable performance contracts, finding no unconstitutional impairment of vested contract rights and no due-process violation based on a protected property interest in continued “permanent” tenure under the prior regime.
- The judgment was affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the cause was remanded for further proceedings consistent with the court’s constitutional rulings.

## Legal Principles

- A plaintiff’s statutory right to voluntary dismissal under 735 ILCS 5/2-1009 is broad but not absolute; a trial court may deny dismissal when a defendant has filed and is actively pursuing a dispositive motion and the case has advanced to a point where dismissal would unfairly prejudice the orderly resolution of the dispute.
- When a State creates elected local bodies that exercise governmental powers (including authority over budgets, leadership selection, and policy implementation), elections for those bodies are subject to equal protection limits associated with the one-person-one-vote rule.
- Equal protection principles forbid election structures that create “votes of unequal weight” among similarly situated residents for the same governmental body, absent a constitutionally sufficient justification.
- A constitutionally protected property interest in public employment requires more than an expectation of continued employment; it must rest on a legitimate entitlement created by law.
- Legislative modification of statutory employment terms (including replacing tenure-like arrangements with fixed-term contracts) does not, by itself, establish an unconstitutional impairment of contract or a due-process violation without a vested right to continuation under the former scheme.

## Conclusion

In *Fumarolo v. Chicago Board of Education*, the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the trial court’s refusal to allow plaintiffs to voluntarily dismiss after defendants had proceeded on a summary-judgment track, struck portions of the Chicago School Reform Act’s election scheme as violating equal protection and one-person-one-vote requirements for elected bodies exercising governmental authority, and rejected principals’ claims that the Act’s move to four-year renewable performance contracts unconstitutionally impaired contract rights or deprived them of property without due process.


Fumarolo v. Chicago Board of Education, 142 Ill. 2d 54 (1990)