Defendant Ernst & Young has made a supplemental 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss this action based on the theory that Plaintiffs lack standing to bring this suit. Defendant argues that Plaintiffs failed to execute a demand on the County as required by 735 ILCS 5/20-01 et seq. (Article XX). §104 of Article XX provides that a citizen intending to bring suit under Article XX may do so if that citizen has first sent a letter to "an appropriate government official," and that official has taken no action for 60 days. An appropriate government official is therein defined as, "(1) the Attorney General, where the government united alleged damaged is the State; (2) the corporation counsel where the government unit alleged damaged is a municipality with a population of over 500,000; and (3) the chief executive office of any other local government unit where that unit is alleged damaged." 725 ILCS 5/20-104. Here, Plaintiffs sent such a letter to the State’s Attorney, Richard Devine. The States Attorney took no action for 60 days and Plaintiffs initiated suit.

Defendant argues that Cook County is not a "municipality" as defined by Illinois law and the Illinois Constitution and, therefore, the States Attorney was not the appropriate government official on which to serve demand. Defendant argues that Cook County is another "unit of local government" under Article XX. Thus, argues Defendant, Cook County Board President John Stroger was the appropriate government official upon which Plaintiffs were required to serve demand as a prerequisite to initiating this action. Plaintiffs offer the counter argument that the County is in fact a municipality under Article XX.

However, the Court need not pass upon the question of whether the County is a municipality as defined by the Illinois Constitution and laws. The purpose of the demand requirement under Article XX is to notify the appropriate government entity of a citizen’s intent to bring suit under the Article so that the entity in questions has an opportunity to take whatever action it deems appropriate. Here, the Court finds the County has actual notice of the suit, and in fact had notice of the suite sufficiently in advance of the initiation of this action. Further, the County has appeared, and has contested neither the appropriateness of the demand, nor the Plaintiff’s prosecution of this suit. Defendants are asking the Court to dismiss the complaint without prejudice and in so doing provide Plaintiffs an opportunity to serve demand on the cook county board President and, in essence, provide the county with notice of a suit in which it has already appeared. This would certainly be the exaltation of form over substance. Where the County now before the Court contesting the sufficiency of the demand, the Court would possibly find the argument more meritorious. However, as it stands, the Court finds granting the motion at bar would only create needless delay. Therefore, the motion is denied.