Share:The District Court giveth, and the District Court taketh away. In Kenosha Unified School District No. 1 Board of Education v. Whitaker (per curiam) (slip op. Nov. 14, 2016), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit faced a somewhat unusual circumstance. A transgender student sued his school district for denying him access to […]
Share:In insurance, a follow form endorsement is typically understood to mean that an excess or umbrella insurance policy incorporates the terms of another underlying insurance policy. An excess carrier with such an endorsement might reasonably expect, then, that it could take advantage of an arbitration provision in the underlying policy. Not so fast, the Seventh […]
Share:Even after a final money judgment is awarded, judgment debtors are not always willing or able to satisfy it. Sometimes supplementary proceedings are required to obtain satisfaction of the judgment. These supplementary proceedings can take the form of disputes with third-parties that may owe money to the judgment debtor (insurance companies, for example) and can […]
Share:The Seventh Circuit recently weighed in on the meaning and effect of a “service of suit” clause in a reinsurance treaty. In Pine Top Receivables of Illinois, LLC v. Transfercom, Ltd., 2015 WL 8780611, F.3d (7th Cir. Sept. 1, 2016), the Court held that a service of suit clause gave the insured the right to […]
Share:The Illinois appellate court was recently presented with an interesting fact pattern that allowed it to consider the boundary between permissible inferences drawn from circumstantial evidence and impermissible speculation. In Berke v. Manilow, 2016 IL App (1st) 150397, the appellate court held that the defendant in a premises liability claim was entitled to summary judgment […]
Share:In Byer Clinic and Chiropractic Ltd. v. Kapraun, 2016 Il App (1st) 143733, a divided panel of the Illinois appellate court considered the class representative adequacy requirement under Illinois law in the context of a TCPA suit. A TCPA class action was similarly the backdrop for the Seventh Circuit’s consideration of the class counsel adequacy […]
Share:There seems to be an increase in judicial decisions addressing a litigant’s right, if any, to use the court system without disclosing his or her name. Perhaps this trend is inspired by people’s experience on the Internet, where one may interact with others, express opinions, and engage in all manner of transactions without unmasking oneself. […]
Share:The Illinois Appellate Court recently ruled that, where a party raises a substantive arbitral issue in a motion to dismiss pursuant to Illinois Code of Civil Procedure § 2-619(a)(2), that party has submitted to the jurisdiction of the court and waives its right to compel arbitration. Watkins v. Mellen, 2016 IL App (3d) 2016. Albert […]
Share:The Seventh Circuit recently answered an important question about when suits under the Copyright Act accrue for purposes of its three-year statute of limitations. See 17 U.S.C. § 507(b). In Consumer Health Information Corp. v. Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc., No. 14-3231, 2016 WL 1534013 (7th Cir. April 15, 2016), the Court of Appeals held that the […]
Share:The Seventh Circuit recently issued an important opinion for any business that conducts transactions through a website. In Sgouros v. TransUnion Corp., No. 15-1371, 2016 WL 1169411 (7th Cir. March 25, 2016), the Court held that TransUnion’s website did not provide users with adequate notice of the arbitration clause in its “Service Agreement” to bind […]
Share:The Illinois Code of Civil Procedure provides a mechanism for the circuit court to dismiss an action where there is “another action pending between the same parties for the same cause.” 735 ILCS 5/2-619(a)(3). In Schacht v. Lome, 2016 IL App (1st) 141931, the appellate court considered whether the defendant’s prior suit to enjoin dissolution […]
Share:As a general rule, the Illinois appellate court only has jurisdiction to review final judgments. Ill. Sup. Ct. R. 303(a). When there are multiple claims and parties, and there has been a final judgment as to one or more but fewer than all of them, the appellate court has jurisdiction to review that judgment if […]
Share:Although it left the issue undecided, the Seventh Circuit recently noted that the 2008 amendments to the Americans with Disabilities Act may have altered its causation standard. The case, Arroyo v. Volvo Group North America LLC, No. 14-3618, 2015 WL 5846595 (Oct. 6, 2015), was discussed by John M. Fitzgerald and Uri Abt in “The Bottom […]
Share:In an article in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, Jordan Wilkow discusses a recent case from the Northern District of Illinois that, for the first time in the Northern District, denied conditional pre-notice class certification under the Fair Labor Standards Act after applying an “intermediate” standard of review.
Share:John M. Fitzgerald and Uri Abt discuss a recent Illinois appellate court opinion interpreting the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act (FIRREA), the federal law governing claims against failed banks, in their regular column in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin. The appellate court held that the plaintiff’s failure to file an administrative action before the FDIC within […]
Share:Do statutory confidentiality provisions mandate that information designated “confidential” is also non-discoverable? No, the Illinois Supreme Court recently held in Klaine v. Southern Illinois Hospital Services, 2016 IL 118217. Rather, “the confidential nature of information does not prevent it from being discoverable unless the plain language of the statute so provides.” The Supreme Court’s ruling […]
Share:Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV of the Southern District of New York recently granted, in part, a motion for sanctions that raised “significant issues concerning the reach of newly amended Rule 37(e) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the standard of proof governing spoliation, and the relief appropriate for destruction of electronically stored […]
Share:Although not directly related to any codified evidence rule, it is important to be aware of three appellate court split decisions in the Third District resulting in intradistrict conflicts about the propriety of playing a video—at the request of the jury after jury deliberations had begun—in the courtroom in the presence of the jury, the […]
Share:In their regular column in the the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, “The Bottom Line,” John M. Fitzgerald and Uri Abt discuss a recent a Illinois appellate court opinion that answered two certified questions about Illinois’ relation back rule in light of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Krupski v. Costa Crociere S.p.A., 560 U.S. […]
Share:The recent case of Sturgill v. Santander Consumer USA, Inc., 2016 IL App (5th) 140380, demonstrates that while most motions to compel arbitration pursuant to a written contract will be determined based only upon the allegations of the plaintiffs complaint and the language of the contractual arbitration clause, there are times when more information is […]
Share:Judge Dow of the Northern District of Illinois recently denied a motion to strike a jury demand for trademark-related claims after holding that plaintiffs who claim an infringer’s profits as a proxy for damages have a constitutional right to a jury trial. The subsequent trial resulted in a $54 million verdict in favor of the […]
Share:A court has, for the first time, passed on employer liability under the Illinois Military Leave of Absence Act (“IMLOAA”), 5 ILCS 325/1. See Bello v. Village of Skokie, No. 14 C 1718, 2015 WL 9582986, at *14 (N.D.Ill. Dec. 31, 2015). On the face of it, the Act’s requirements are straightforward. First, a public […]
Share:Bello v. Village of Skokie, No. 14 C 1718, 2014 WL 4344391, at *8-9 (N.D.Ill. Sept. 2, 2014) and 2015 WL 9582986, at *12 (N.D.Ill. Dec. 31, 2015) are the latest decisions out of the Northern District of Illinois to weigh in on an open question over individual liability under the Illinois Whistleblower Act (“IWA”), […]
Share:In Stevens v. McGuireWoods LLP, 2015 IL 118652 (Thomas, J.), the Illinois Supreme Court was called upon to decide whether former minority members of an LLC could bring a legal malpractice action against the LLC’s litigation law firm for allegedly failing to timely file a derivative action against the company’s former corporate law firm. In […]