Seventh Circuit Roundup: Decisions Issued in May Involve Applying “Heck Bar” to Section 1983 Claims and Imposing Class-Notice Costs on Defendants

The third episode of Seventh Circuit Roundup covers two significant decisions the Seventh Circuit issued in May – Courtney v. Butler and Bakov v. Consolidated World Travel.

In the first case, the Seventh Circuit applied the Supreme Court’s 1994 decision in Heck v. Humphrey – which held that a plaintiff ordinarily cannot bring a Section 1983 constitutional-rights claim if a judgment in his favor “would necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence” – to parole-revocation decisions (it concluded Heck did not bar the plaintiff’s claim that prison officials unconstitutionally failed to effect his release).

The second case, a class action, raised the question of who should bear the cost of notifying the potential class members: The Seventh Circuit held that while generally the plaintiff must initially bear these costs, a district court may shift these costs to the defendant if the class was certified after the defendant was found liable. Listen to learn more about the background, reasoning, and consequences of these decisions.

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