Illinois

  • March 12, 2024

    DC Circ. Questions MPLX Alternatives In FERC Decision

    D.C. Circuit judges on Tuesday pressed attorneys for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on the agency's decision allowing crude oil transportation company MPLX to charge market rates on its Ozark Pipeline, questioning in particular how much capacity would be available on other lines if shippers needed an alternative to supracompetitive pricing.

  • March 12, 2024

    Ill. Judge Confirmed As Progressives Seek Faster Approvals

    The Senate voted Tuesday to confirm a U.S. magistrate judge to the Northern District of Illinois and a vice president at Capital One Financial to the Western District of Virginia as a large progressive legal organization wants the Senate to ramp up its judicial confirmations.

  • March 12, 2024

    Sheppard Mullin Adds Ex-Latham & Watkins Atty In Chicago

    Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP has hired as a partner in its Chicago office an attorney who formerly worked for accounting firm KPMG and also spent 18 years at Latham & Watkins LLP.

  • March 11, 2024

    White Male Law Student Claims Bias From Chicago Bears

    A law student on Monday lodged race and sex discrimination claims against the Chicago Bears in Illinois federal court, claiming that the NFL team wrongly refused to hire him as a "legal diversity fellow" because he's white and a man.

  • March 11, 2024

    Ill. Pizzeria, Md. Pizza Chain Get Partial Wins In 'Ledo' TM Row

    Family-owned Illinois pizzeria Ledo's Inc. and Maryland-based Ledo Pizza chain scored partial victories in a four-year-old trademark fight after a federal judge issued an order that partially granted both sides' summary judgment bids over the eateries' use of the name "Ledo" for their respective businesses.

  • March 11, 2024

    Ill. Court OKs $48M Award In Brain Damage Med Mal Suit

    An Illinois state appeals court has affirmed a $48.1 million award in a suit accusing an emergency medicine physician and a hospital of improperly placing a breathing tube in a patient and causing permanent brain damage, saying certain jury instructions given by the trial court were not erroneous.

  • March 11, 2024

    Jury Hears 'This We'll Defend' Shirts Infringed T-Shirt Co.'s TM

    Chicago-based T-shirt company Grunt Style on Monday urged an Illinois federal jury to hold a California competitor liable for selling shirts featuring the slogan, "This We'll Defend," asserting the competitor's sales constitute willful infringement of a trademark held for more than a decade.

  • March 11, 2024

    Tech, Retail Industries Say No To Patent Eligibility Reforms

    A coalition of tech companies, retailers and tech activist groups lined up on Monday in opposition to the latest legislative effort to limit patent invalidation in the courts, warning that unseating legal precedents over eligibility would lead to a coming "wave of crippling litigation."

  • March 11, 2024

    7th Circ. Won't Reinstate Ex-Cops' Retaliation Suit

    The Seventh Circuit refused to revive allegations that an Illinois city pushed out a police officer who complained about a colleague's sexual comments and a lieutenant who asked for a different shift because of sleep apnea, saying a trial court was right to toss the claims.

  • March 11, 2024

    Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

    Delaware's Court of Chancery became a hot topic in New Orleans last week as litigators and judges at an annual convention acknowledged the First State's corporate law preeminence is under scrutiny. Back home, the court moved ahead on disputes involving Meta Platforms, Abercrombie & Fitch and Donald Trump.

  • March 08, 2024

    Real Estate Authority: SEC Climate Regs, State Of The Union

    Law360 Real Estate Authority covers the most important real estate deals, litigation, policies and trends. Catch up on key news from this week by state — as well as how President Joe Biden aims to improve affordable housing and what the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's new climate rule means for public real estate companies.

  • March 08, 2024

    Ill. Justices Give Hockey Player's Disability Suit Another Shot

    A former high school hockey player can pursue disability discrimination claims against youth hockey organizations that barred her for having depression, as the Illinois Supreme Court ruled Friday that the organizations' action amounts to barring someone from a public space under the state's Human Rights Act.

  • March 08, 2024

    7th Circ. Wants 'Roadmap' For Ill. Workplace Disease Law

    The Seventh Circuit has asked the Illinois Supreme Court to weigh in on the state's Workers' Occupational Diseases Act, saying it needs a "roadmap" to handle claims for asbestos and other diseases that manifest belatedly as it considers a widow's suit alleging her husband's exposure to a toxic chemical while working for Goodrich Corp. led to his death.

  • March 08, 2024

    Debt-Stricken Homeowners Fight Back After High Court Ruling

    Ten months after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision finding a Minnesota county wrongly held onto excess proceeds it reaped after seizing a woman’s condominium and selling it to settle a tax debt, states are scrambling to reexamine their laws as financially distressed homeowners file new suits challenging the practice.

  • March 08, 2024

    DOL Says Ousting Union Fund Trustees Is Right Move

    The Seventh Circuit should allow an injunction ousting two trustees from a fraud-plagued union benefit fund to take effect, the U.S. Department of Labor told the court, urging it to deny the trustees' bid to stay the injunction.

  • March 08, 2024

    $2M Unilever Suave Deodorant Settlement Gets First OK

    An Illinois federal judge has given the go-ahead to a $2 million settlement to end a class action's claims that Unilever United States Inc. sold Suave antiperspirant products with dangerous amounts of benzene.

  • March 08, 2024

    Weather Data Revives Lumber Co.'s H-2B Visa Application

    An Illinois lumber company's weather reports had helped prove it would face labor shortages during the warmer seasons, a U.S. Department of Labor judge ruled, ordering a certifying officer to revisit the company's request to hire eight seasonal workers.

  • March 07, 2024

    Crypto Founder's Extortion Suit Fails Yet Again

    The founder of a cryptocurrency token company cannot bring racketeering and trade secret claims against former consultants he alleges extorted him for millions of dollars and tried to ruin his company's reputation, an Illinois federal judge has ruled.

  • March 07, 2024

    Judge Doubts 'Dead-End' Google BIPA Fight Over IBM Dataset

    A California federal judge said Thursday she'll likely allow limited discovery in a proposed class action alleging Google violated Illinois residents' biometric privacy rights with facial data collected by IBM Corp., but she doubted the case "has legs" given that another federal judge has thrown out similar "dead-end" litigation.

  • March 07, 2024

    Chicken Buyers Bail On Remaining Claims Against Producers

    A class of direct purchasers effectively threw in the towel Wednesday on continuing with class price-fixing claims against Perdue Farms, Claxton Poultry and others, cutting deals that abandon attempts to revive the allegations and allow the buyers to avoid up to $1 million in legal costs they might have owed the major chicken producers.

  • March 07, 2024

    Senate Tees Up 5 More Judge Picks Despite GOP Resistance

    The Senate Judiciary Committee voted out five judicial nominees on Thursday, which includes various historic firsts for diversity.

  • March 07, 2024

    Illinois Judge OKs $870K Deal In Database Privacy Suit

    A Cook County judge said Thursday she would award preliminary approval to an $870,000 settlement between B2B platform Apollo.io and a class of Illinois residents who say the company unlawfully used their personal identifying information to advertise its paid subscriptions.

  • March 07, 2024

    Ex-Staffer Blasts 'Skulduggery' In Posner's Sanctions Bid

    The so-called pro se litigation "expert" suing retired Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner for $170,000 has hit back at Posner's bid to have him sanctioned for gratuitous "personal attacks" — by accusing Posner of "hypocrisy," calling the former judge's friend a murdering "deranged societal misfit," and alleging that Posner hired a "serial liar" attorney to bolster his case.

  • March 07, 2024

    Feds Look To Bar Advice-Of-Counsel Defense From Tax Trial

    Federal prosecutors have sought to prevent two attorneys and an insurance agent from relying on advice-of-counsel defenses in their upcoming tax fraud trial, telling a North Carolina federal judge the trio failed to give the court an adequate heads-up about their intended defense.

  • March 06, 2024

    Ex-Northeastern Coach Gets 5 Years In Nude Photo Ploy

    A former Northeastern University track and field coach was sentenced by a federal judge to five years in prison Wednesday for a series of schemes to trick young women into providing him with nude or semi-nude photos that he used for his own gratification and shared for clout in online forums that traded in surreptitiously-obtained images.

Expert Analysis

  • Why Privacy And Trade Secret Law Are On A Collision Course

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    The conflict between the legal regimes of trade secret law and data privacy law is growing as companies increasingly collect and use data about their customers, making it key for organizations to find ways to comply with both laws in order to protect their intellectual property and the privacy of their customer, says Jenny Colgate at Rothwell Figg.

  • How To Recognize And Recover From Lawyer Loneliness

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    Law can be one of the loneliest professions, but there are practical steps that attorneys and their managers can take to help themselves and their peers improve their emotional health, strengthen their social bonds and protect their performance, says psychologist and attorney Traci Cipriano.

  • Opinion

    Litigation Funding Disclosure Should Be Mandatory

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    Despite the Appellate Rules Committee's recent deferral of the issue of requiring third-party litigation funding disclosure, such a mandate is necessary to ensure the even-handed administration of justice across all cases, says David Levitt at Hinshaw.

  • Recalling USWNT's Legal PR Playbook Amid World Cup Bid

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    As the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team strives to take home another World Cup trophy, their 2022 pay equity settlement with the U.S. Soccer Federation serves as a good reminder that winning in the court of public opinion can be more powerful than a victory inside the courtroom, says Hector Valle at Vianovo.

  • ComEd Case Shows Wide Reach Of FCPA Accounting Clauses

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    The recent conviction of former Commonwealth Edison executives and associates, paired with broader civil enforcement actions, demonstrates the government’s willingness to enforce the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act’s accounting provisions, even in domestic cases without a predicate violation of the statute’s anti-bribery provisions, say James Koukios and Nathan Lowry at MoFo.

  • Regulating AI: Litigation Questions And State Efforts To Watch

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    In view of the developing legal and regulatory framework for artificial intelligence systems in the U.S., including state legislation and early federal litigation, there are practical takeaways as we look toward the future, says Jennifer Maisel at Rothwell Figg.

  • Opinion

    Justices' Job Transfer Review Should Hold To Title VII Text

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's upcoming decision in Muldrow v. City of St. Louis should hold that a job transfer can be an adverse employment action, and the analysis should be based on the straightforward language of Title VII rather than judicial activism, say Lynne Bernabei and Alan Kabat at Bernabei & Kabat.

  • Immigration Program Pitfalls Exacerbate Physician Shortages

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    Eliminating shortcomings from U.S. immigration regulations and policies could help mitigate the national shortage of physicians by encouraging foreign physicians to work in medically underserved areas, but progress has been halted by partisan gridlock, say Alison Hitz and Dana Schwarz at Clark Hill.

  • Perspectives

    Mallory Gives Plaintiffs A Better Shot At Justice

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    Critics of the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern claim it opens the door to litigation tourism, but the ruling simply gives plaintiffs more options — enabling them to seek justice against major corporations in the best possible court, say Rayna Kessler and Ethan Seidenberg at Robins Kaplan.

  • And Now A Word From The Panel: 55 Years Of The JPML

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    As the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation marks its 55th birthday, Alan Rothman at Sidley looks back at its history and finds that, while some features of MDL jurisprudence have changed over the decades, the most remarkable aspect of the panel's practice has been its consistency.

  • 9th Circ. Gap Ruling Creates Split On Forum Selection Clause

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    The Ninth Circuit recently held in Lee v. Fisher that a forum selection clause in Gap's bylaws requiring all derivative claims to be brought in Delaware state court is enforceable, but since the Seventh Circuit struck down a similar clause in Boeing's bylaws last year, Supreme Court review may be on the horizon, say attorneys at Davis Polk.

  • Why Justices' SuperValu Ruling Wasn't Quite A 'Seismic Shift'

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    Notwithstanding an early victory lap by the relators' bar, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in U.S. v. SuperValu Inc. was a win for both whistleblowers and sophisticated companies, but unfortunately left “subjective belief” to be interpreted by lower courts and future litigants, say attorneys at Baker Donelson.

  • Effectual Relief Questions Linger After Section 363 Ruling

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    In the months since the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in MOAC Mall Holdings, courts and practitioners must grapple with the issue of what effectual relief courts may grant upon an appeal of an unstayed sale order, says Monique Jewett-Brewster at Hopkins Carley.

  • What's Next For Enviro Justice After Affirmative Action Ban?

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision striking down affirmative action measures in university admissions raises questions about the future of the Biden administration's environmental justice initiatives — but EJ advocates may still have reasons for cautious optimism, say J. Michael Showalter and Robert Middleton at ArentFox Schiff.

  • Courts Can Overturn Deficient State Regulations, Too

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    While suits challenging federal regulations have become commonplace, such cases against state agencies are virtually nonexistent, but many states have provisions that allow litigants to bring suit for regulations with inadequate cost-benefit analyses, says Reeve Bull at the Virginia Office of Regulatory Management.

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