Alarm Detection Sys., Inc. v. Vill. of Schaumburg, Corp.
| Decision Date | 28 September 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 17 C 2153,17 C 2153 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
| Parties | ALARM DETECTION SYSTEMS, INC., an Illinois corporation; ILLINOIS ALARM SERVICE, INC., an Illinois corporation; D.M.C. SECURITY SERVICES, INC., a Illinois corporation; NITECH FIRE & SECURITY INDUSTRIES, INC., an Illinois corporation; SMG SECURITY SYSTEMS, INC., an Illinois corporation; and ACADIAN MONITORING SERVICES, LLC, a Louisiana limited liability corporation, Plaintiffs, v. THE VILLAGE OF SCHAUMBURG, a municipal corporation; TYCO INTEGRATED SECURITY LLC, a Delaware limited liability company; and NORTHWEST CENTRAL DISPATCH SYSTEM, an intergovernmental cooperation association, Defendants. |
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Plaintiffs are companies that provide fire alarm monitoring services to commercial and multifamily buildings in the Village of Schaumburg. (Verified Compl. ("VC") [1] ¶¶ 1, 2.) They allege that Defendants Schaumburg, Tyco Integrated Security, LLC ("Tyco"), and Northwest Central Dispatch System ("NWCDS") committed antitrust violations, state law torts, and violated Plaintiffs' Constitutional rights through an "illegal anticompetitive and monopolistic scheme" that injured both Plaintiffs and the Schaumburg market. (Id. at ¶¶ 7, 25-26.)
As described more fully in an opinion issued last year, see Alarm Detection Sys. Inc., v. Village of Schaumburg, No. 17 C 2153, 2017 WL 3780279 (N.D. Ill Aug. 31, 2017), Defendant NWCDS dispatches emergency services in response to alarm signals sent from "central stations," such as the ones operated by Plaintiffs, or from transmitters that send alarm signals directly to NWCDS. Since 2011, NWCDS has been a party to an agreement with Defendant Tyco in which Tyco operates the fire alarm monitoring station owned by NWCDS. In 2016, the Village of Schaumburg adopted an ordinance requiring most commercial buildings in Schaumburg to transmit signals wirelessly to the NWCDS "remote supervising station" by August 31, 2019. This meant, effectively, that Schaumburg businesses and multifamily residential buildings would have to send signals directly to Tyco's receiving equipment, and allegedly has resulted in Plaintiffs' losing customers for the alarm monitoring services they provide.
Plaintiffs moved for a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the ordinance. For reasons explained in the court's August 31, 2017 opinion, that motion was denied. Plaintiffs now move for reconsideration of that ruling [68]. Defendants oppose that motion and have renewed their own earlier motions to dismiss the complaint ([79], [81], [84]). For the reasons stated below, Plaintiffs' motion for reconsideration is denied and Defendants' motions to dismiss are granted in part.
Plaintiffs' business involves receiving, monitoring, and handling fire alarm signals that originate from commercial and multifamily buildings in Schaumburg ("Commercial Accounts"). (VC [1] ¶¶ 2, 49-50.) The Plaintiff companies "either operate their own supervising stations," where they monitor alarm signals, or they "contract with third-party supervising stations to receive the Signals and monitor the fire alarm systems of [Plaintiffs'] customers." (Id. at ¶ 1.) When a signal is received at Plaintiffs' supervising stations, "a phone call . . . [is] made from the supervising station to NWCDS, which operates a 911 center and dispatches emergency personnel as necessary for Schaumburg." (Id. at ¶ 12.) Plaintiffs also sell, lease, install, and maintain alarm signal transmission devices. (Id. at ¶ 2.) In March 2017, Plaintiffs alleged that they had "over four hundred Commercial Accounts in Schaumburg." (Id. at ¶ 75.)
Plaintiffs filed this action after Defendant Schaumburg passed Ordinance No. 16-078 ("the Ordinance") on August 23, 2016, "requiring that all Commercial Accounts in Schaumburg use the supervising station operated by Defendant Northwest Central [Dispatch System]." (Id. at ¶ 4.) The Ordinance, in part, provides that:
(Id. at Ex. B, at 9.) While extensions beyond the August 2019 deadline may be granted "upon a determination by the Fire Chief that the public safety is not affected," in no case can extension be granted beyond 2021. (Id.) In Schaumburg, the designated remote supervising station is NWCDS. (VC [1] ¶ 4, Ex. B at 4.)
At the time the Ordinance was passed, NWCDS was nearly five years into a ten-year agreement with Defendant Tyco. That agreement gave "Tyco the exclusive right to install, own, maintain, and service all alarm signal receiving and processing equipment" at NWCDS. (VC [1] ¶¶ 15, 64.) On September 27, 2016, Defendant Schaumburg's Fire Chief sent out a letter ("Notice") to "Fire Alarm User[s]," notifying them of the Ordinance. The Notice explained that the Ordinance would "eventually require all fire alarm systems in the village to be monitored by the 911 center at Northwest Central Dispatch System" and that "[a]ll conversions of the new monitoring services must be complete prior to August 31, 2019." (Id. at Ex. H.) The letter also informed users that (Id.)
The combined effect of the Ordinance, the Agreement, and the Notice, plaintiffs assert, is that they "will lose all of their Business in the Schaumburg Market[,] and the Commercial Accounts in the Schaumburg Market will be deprived of their choice of fire alarm contractors, resulting in higher costs than a competitive market." (VC [1] ¶ 120.) Plaintiffs assert that they have already lost some customers "based solely on the new Village of Schaumburg ordinance" (id. at ¶ 77), and that their contracts with other customers will be affected in the future. (Id. at ¶¶ 76-79; Exs. I, J.)
In its August 2017 opinion, this court denied Plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction. Alarm Detection, 2017 WL 3780279. The court concluded, inter alia, that Plaintiffs had not established a likelihood of success on their antitrust claims, id. *10-12; had not shown that the Ordinance was unsupported by a legitimate purpose or violates regulatory standards, id. *14, 16; had not established that they were entitled to injunctive relief for violations of their due process or equal protection rights, id. *16-17; and had not established that any interference with their contractual expectations was improperly motivated. Id. *17. The court also noted the possibility that Plaintiffs' damages, if any, from the alleged violations are quantifiable. Id at *18.
A motion for reconsideration is not expressly provided for by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, but the Seventh Circuit has construed Rule 59(e) to permit such motions. See Obriecht v. Raemisch, 517 F.3d 489, 493-94 (7th Cir. 2008) () (citing Osterneck v. Ernst & Whinney, 489 U.S. 169, 174 (1989)); FED. R. CIV. P. 59(e) (). Such a motion allows district courts to take a second look at their decisions, but only within narrow bounds. See Quaker Alloy Casting Co. v. Gulfco Indus., Inc., 123 F.R.D. 282, 288 (N.D. Ill. 1988) (). A request for reconsideration requires the movant to identify "a manifest error of law or fact or present newly discovered evidence." Vesely v. Armslist LLC, 762 F.3d 661, 666 (7th Cir. 2014) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). A motion for reconsideration "may not be used to raise novel legal theories that a party had the ability to address in the first instance," Russell, 51 F.3d at 749 (citation omitted), nor may a motion for reconsideration "be used to 'rehash' previously rejected arguments." Vesely, 762 F.3d at 666 (citing Oto, 224 F.3d at 606 (7th Cir. 2000)). As the Seventh Circuit recognizes, a Rule 59(e) motion is "appropriately used to fix errors," Miller v. Safeco Ins. Co. of Am., 683 F.3d 805, 815 (7th Cir. 2012) (citing Moro v. Shell Oil Co., 91 F.3d 872, 876 (7th Cir. 1996), but does not "provide a vehicle for a party to undo its own procedural failures, and it certainly does not allow a party to introduce new evidence or advance arguments that could and should have been presented to the district court prior to the judgment." Moro, 91 F.3d at 876.
In support of their motion, Plaintiffs assert that the court "made incorrect factual findings despite the 'largely undisputed' allegations of the Verified Complaint." ( ) 2 Respectfully, however, every factual issue they point to is either an attempt to cast their pleadings in a new light or would not require a different ruling on Plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction.
First, Plaintiffs present no new evidence with their motion for reconsideration. They do direct the court's attention to national fire code...
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