Earlier this month, Rathje Woodward LLC attorneys Jim W. Scales and Yates M. French secured the reversal of a substantial judgment against a Chicago charitable organization, the Youth and Adult Center, in a case of first impression interpreting the Illinois Grant Funds Recovery Act (30 ILCS 705/1 et. seq.). People ex rel. Illinois Dep’t of Human Services v. Youth & Adult Ctr., 2025 IL App (1st) 240664-U.
In 2014, the Youth and Adult Center received a grant from the Illinois Department of Health and Human Services. In 2018, the IDHHS mailed two notices accusing YAC of not spending those funds to an address no longer occupied by YAC. Despite those notices being sent to YAC’s former address in 2022, the State of Illinois initiated a lawsuit to recover those funds, asserting any defense had been forfeited by not responding. The Circuit Court agreed and entered judgment against YAC.
The Court of Appeals reversed and vacated the judgment finding the Illinois Grant Funds Recovery Act required more than mailing notices to YAC’s previous business address. Quoting Rathje Woodward’s brief, the Court of Appeals explained “The clear, plain, and unambiguous language of section 8 of the Act required the Department to provide YAC with written notice of its intent to recover the grant funds, and the Department was required to forward this written notice to YAC’s current business address. The Department failed to do this and therefore failed to fulfill the statute’s notice mandate.”
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