Latest Case: A.F. Moore & Associates, Inc. v. Kocoras (Civil Procedure)

Law and Non-Legal Entitlements: Kate Manne’s Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women

LESLEY WEXLER

Illinois law professor Lesley Wexler comments on philosopher Kate Manne’s recent book, Entitled, in which Mann tackles “privileged men’s sense of entitlement” as a “pervasive social problem with often devastating consequences.” Wexler praises Manne’s work as “illuminating” and calls upon lawyers and law scholars to ask how such entitlements might best and safely be challenged and reallocated, and how new more egalitarian entitlements might be generated and enforced.

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A.F. Moore & Associates, Inc. v. Kocoras

Docket: 20-2497

Opinion Date: September 10, 2020

Judge: Per Curiam

Areas of Law: Civil Procedure

The Seventh Circuit reversed the dismissal of a taxpayers' suit, challenging Cook County’s pre-2008 property tax assessments. The district court had determined that it lacked jurisdiction under the Tax Injunction Act, 28 U.S.C. 1341, because Illinois offered the taxpayers a “plain, speedy and efficient remedy.” The Seventh Circuit held that Illinois’s procedures left these taxpayers no remedy. Mandate issued in April 2020, The case returned to the district court. In June, the defendants sought a stay pending the resolution of a petition for a writ of certiorari that they planned to submit in September. The Seventh Circuit denied their request but the district court granted relief. The Seventh Circuit vacated the district court order. Declining to consider the taxpayers’ argument under 28 U.S.C. 2101(f), which governs cases in which a “final judgment” is subject to Supreme Court review, the court stated that the district court’s stay was in direct opposition to the mandate. When a court of appeals has reversed a final judgment and remanded the case, the district court is required to comply. The Seventh CIrcuit noted that it had already denied the defendants’ request for the same relief. The spirit of the mandate entailed more than changing the status of the case from “closed” to “reopen”; it presupposed that further proceeding would be at an ordinary pace.