A schedule was set this week for complainants to petition to be part of what is slowly shaping up to be Illinois’ cannabis supercase in the Cook County Circuit Court.
A diverse cast of attorneys from at least half a dozen cases Monday agreed with chief deputy attorney general Doug Rees’ suggestion of a Nov. 9 briefing deadline. Rees then agreed to submit the state’s response by Nov. 16.
Circuit Court Judge Moishe Jacobius, responding to an Illinois Supreme Court order to consolidate four cases related to cannabis into one trial, approved the schedule and promised to make a ruling on how the cases would be consolidated, “before Thanksgiving”, he said.
Since September 2020, Judge Jacobius has been hearing the case WAH Group v. IDFPR, which complain of numerous errors in Illinois cannabis license application process, as well as a charge that the entire application scoring process is unconstitutional in Illinois. Since the completion of the application process, other suits have been filed complaining of application scoring errors and problems with the license lotteries conducted in July and August.
The Supreme Court order came at the request of attorneys for the state, who have argued that all of the cases with problems with the application process should be managed through the Administrative Law Review process, where judges review the final decisions of regulators. The WAH case was filed in September 2020, long before any decisions were made, but the Supreme Court’s order consolidates WAH and two other cases into the first Administrative Law Case to be filed, High Haven Dispensary v. IDFPR, a case pending before Cook County Circuit Court Judge Cecilia Gamrath.
