“The possibility of a future actual controversy is too remote to support standing to bring suit”
How later courts described this case
- “The possibility of a future actual controversy is too remote to support standing to bring suit”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
JUSTICE GREEN, specially concurring:
I concur in the decision to affirm the judgment of the circuit court dismissing the complaint and agree with most of what is stated in the comprehensive opinion of the majority.
As stated by the majority, the inherent and at least partially adversarial relationship between employers and employees prevents the League or any of its member units from being appropriate entities to seek to uphold claimed rights of employees. I agree that plaintiffs lacked standing to bring counts I and V.
The opinion well documents the reluctance of Illinois courts to find the existence of an actual controversy until litigation is almost at hand. I agree that injunction provisions of section 18 of the Act (Ill. Rev. Stat., 1984 Supp., ch. 48, par. 1618) justifies the conclusion that count III does not present a ripe claim. I also agree that under the decision in Barco Manufacturing Co. v. Wright (1956), 10 Ill. 2d 157 , 139 N.E.2d 227 , any claim made by count VI is subject to the same infirmity.
Count III, however, purports to allege the existence of a constitutional prohibition against strikes by governmental employees. I agree with the implication of the majority that clearly no such prohibition exists. The majority apparently considers this lack of merit in the count as the chief reason why an actual controversy is not presented by the count. I do not agree that the lack of merit in the count is of substantial relevance to whether the dispute is ripe. If the issue set forth in the count is not ripe, it would, apparently, become ripe only when a particular strike by municipal employees is actually threatened. I am reluctant to pass on the question of whether this is so if we do not have to.
I recognize that we should ordinarily (1) avoid passing on a constitutional question when a case can be decided on other grounds; and (2) not pass on an issue of substance without resolving the question of whether the issue is ripe. Nevertheless, I would do so here because the lack of merit in count III is so clear and the question of ripeness so complicated. Even though the trial court did not pass on the merits of the allegations of count III, I would justify the trial court’s dismissal of that count on the basis that the constitutional prohibition claimed does not exist.