CAMPTON HILLS – An appellate court ruled that a Kane County judge erred when he ordered the Wasco Sanitary District to pay a total of $506,805.46 in legal fees in separate payments to two law firms connected to legal battles dating back to 2009.

The Illinois Second District Appellate Court rendered its decision Nov. 25, finding that Kane County Circuit Judge Kevin Busch erred in both the Oct. 18 and Nov. 15 orders, according to the ruling.

In its four-page summary, the appellate court found that Busch erred when he did not hold a hearing on the sanitary district's court filing of an appeal of his decision ordering it to pay the legal fees.

The appellate court also remanded the issue back to Busch to vacate his order to pay consistent with its ruling.

The district had been paying legal fees to the Kane County Circuit Clerk to be disbursed to the law firms for ongoing legal costs. On Oct. 18, Busch ordered the sanitary district to pay ongoing legal fees to the Kane County Circuit Clerk, which would then release funds to the law firms.

On Nov. 15, Busch ordered the circuit clerk to release checks for $269,574.32 to Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP and $237,231.14 to Figliulo & Silverman, PC, and he had denied the sanitary district’s emergency motion to stay enforcement of his October order to release the payments.

When the district filed its notice of interlocutory appeal on Nov. 14, that action "deprived the trial court of jurisdiction to award fees in furtherance of the injunction at issue in this appeal," according to the appellate decision.

The oldest lawsuit against the Wasco Sanitary District is a civil racketeering complaint filed by Edward Fiala. The sanitary district filed suit against Fox Mill developer B&B Enterprises in 2010 to pay the legal fees of defending the Fiala lawsuit. That lawsuit is still pending.

Another lawsuit, filed in 2013 by the sanitary district, also has to do with paying the legal costs associated with defending Fiala’s lawsuit.

Kane County Circuit Judge David Akemann, who is now retired, had held the sanitary district in contempt in 2017 for failing to continue to pay attorneys their legal fees, court records show. His contempt ruling was in response to a vote in 2017 by new board members to stop defending and indemnifying the previous board members.

The Second District Appellate court in 2018 affirmed Akemann’s contempt ruling, but canceled the court's denial of the sanitary district's motion to vacate the order to continue paying attorney's fees, the Nov. 25 appellate decision stated.

"The trial court erred here by not first holding a hearing consistent with our mandate in Wasco Sanitary District v. Brizuela, 2018 ...," the appellate decision stated. "Without first applying the standards in Bigelow Group (case law), to the District's motion to vacate the February 2014 order, the trial court could not properly award fees to the defendants as the withdrawal vote from March 16, 2017, if not an abuse of discretion, would relieve the district's obligations under the February 2014 order."

Busch set Jan. 10 as the next court date for the sanitary district, which serves about 1,100 customers, most of them in Campton Hills’ Fox Mill subdivision.