Appellate Jurisdiction.

Byline: Derek Hawkins

7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Michael L. Shakman, et al., v. Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County, et al.,

Case No.: 19-2772

Officials: MANION, HAMILTON, and BARRETT, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Appellate Jurisdiction

Many years ago, a class of plaintiffs sued the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County, alleging that the Clerk was engaging in unlawful political patronage in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution. In 1972, the Clerk and the plaintiffs entered into a consent decree that prohibited the Clerk from discriminating against the office's employees for political reasons, and in 1983, a separate judgment extended that prohibition to hiring practices.

Litigation has continued in the ensuing decades. In 2018, unconvinced that the Clerk's office had cleaned up its act, the magistrate judge appointed a special master to monitor the Clerk's compliance with the 1972 consent decree and the 1983 judgment order. As part of her effort to determine whether the Clerk was continuing to favor political allies in employment decisions, the special master sought to observe the conduct of the Clerk's office managers at employee grievance meetings. But the employees' union, Teamsters Local 700, didn't appreciate the scrutiny, and it sent the special master a cease-and-desist letter purporting to bar her from the room. In response, the plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment clarifying that the 2018 supplemental relief order authorized the special master to observe the grievance meetings. The unionwhich was not a party to the suit and did not seek to become onefiled a memorandum opposing the plaintiffs' motion on the grounds that the 1972 consent decree didn't provide a basis for the supplemental relief order and that the special master's presence at the meetings violated both Illinois labor law and the union's collective bargaining agreement with the Clerk.

The magistrate judge agreed with the plaintiffs, and the union now appeals. Its principal argument is that the magistrate judge can't force the union to tolerate the special master because the union isn't a party to the suit. In addition to responding to the merits of this argument, the plaintiffs contend that we lack jurisdiction for two reasons. They assert that the union cannot bring this appeal because it is not a party, and they say that the magistrate judge's declaratory judgment is not an appealable final judgment under 28...