On April 15, 1999, prisoners incarcerated by the Illinois Department of Corrections and individuals wishing to call such prisoners, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Illinois under 42 U.S.C. § 1983; the Sherman Antitrust Act; the Telecommunications Act of 1996; and Illinois state law. The plaintiffs, represented by private counsel, the People's Law Offices, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, filed the suit against the State of Illinois and various telecommunications companies. They claimed that the telephone service rates at various correctional facilities were exorbitant, in violation of the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. The plaintiffs sought damages and injunctive relief against the phone companies and the state agencies responsible for the arrangements with the companies.

Many of the prisons and jails in Illinois grant one phone company the exclusive right to provide telephone service to the prisoners, in return for 50 percent of the revenues generated by the service. The plaintiffs' claimed that the prices were excessive and higher than necessary to cover the costs involved.

On March 22, 2000, Judge William Hibbler dismissed the suit, concluding that plaintiffs' claims were beyond the Court's jurisdiction by reason of the filed-rate and primary-jurisdiction doctrines. 117 F. Supp. 2d 743 (N.D. Ill. 2000). The Court found that the telecommunications statutes clearly assigned to the FCC and ICC the authority to determine the reasonableness of telecomm rates and that those agencies were experts in important ways that the Court was not. Plaintiffs appealed the decision and on March 19, 2001, in an opinion written by Judge Posner, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit modified and affirmed the District Court's decision. Arsberry v. Illinois, 244 F.3d 558 (7th Cir. 2001). The Court of Appeals found that plaintiffs' First Amendment claims lacked merit and that their remaining constitutional claims were barred by the filed-rate and primary-jurisdiction doctrines. On May 29, 2001, the Court of Appeals denied plaintiffs' motion for rehearing en banc and on December 3, 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court denied plaintiffs' petition for certiorari, Arsberry v. Illinois, 534 U.S. 1062 (2001).

Nate West - 10/09/2014


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