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Illinois
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April 19, 2024
Real Estate Authority: Small Bank Loans, ULI, Lunar Housing
Law360 Real Estate Authority covers the most important real estate deals, litigation, policies and trends. Catch up on this week's key developments by state — as well as on the rising regulatory focus on small-bank commercial real estate loans, takeaways from the Urban Land Institute's Resilience Summit, and an architect's guide to lunar housing.
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April 19, 2024
Potawatomi Become Ill.'s First Federally Recognized Tribe
The U.S. Department of the Interior in a historic move has made the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation the only federally recognized tribal nation in Illinois, the tribe said Friday.
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April 19, 2024
Ill. Judge Accepts 3rd Try To Allege Fraud Against Boeing
An investment fund leveling allegations of fraud against Boeing managed to convince an Illinois state court judge on its third attempt that the aircraft maker may have inflated stock values by purportedly covering up safety issues with its 737 Max airplanes.
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April 19, 2024
Walgreens Inks $110M Deal To End Philly Opioid Crisis Suit
Walgreens will pay the city of Philadelphia $110 million over the next five years to settle claims that it contributed to the opioid epidemic by ignoring suspicious prescriptions for addictive opioid painkillers, city officials announced Friday.
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April 19, 2024
Shampoo-Maker Can't Wash Away 'Natural' False Ad Suit
An Illinois federal judge on Thursday trimmed but refused to toss a proposed class action alleging Dr. Squatch LLC deceptively labels its shampoo as "natural" even though it contains multiple artificial ingredients, saying the consumers had sufficiently alleged consumer fraud and unjust enrichment.
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April 19, 2024
Zurich Insurance Hit With $80M Verdict Over 3 Terminations
Three former Zurich American Insurance Co. employees were awarded over $80 million by a Sacramento, California, jury that found they were wrongfully terminated for taking unofficial time off that the plaintiffs said was approved by their supervisor.
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April 19, 2024
FAA Probing Rockies Coach's Mid-Flight Visit To Cockpit
The Federal Aviation Administration on Friday confirmed it has launched an investigation after Colorado Rockies hitting coach Hensley Meulens posted a video of himself sitting inside the cockpit during a United Airlines team-chartered flight.
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April 19, 2024
Off The Bench: NCAA Rules, Trans Athlete Win, NBA Pro's Ban
In this week's Off The Bench, the NCAA formally lifted restrictions on athletes transferring schools and how they can receive name, image and likeness money, West Virginia's transgender sports ban is dealt a blow by the Fourth Circuit, and betting costs an NBA player his career.
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April 19, 2024
Northshore Health Worker Drops Genetic Info Privacy Claims
A patient sitter for Northwestern HealthSystem has voluntarily dropped her proposed class suit claiming she and other workers were unlawfully required to give up information about their medical histories during the application process.
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April 18, 2024
Perkins Coie 'Beating A Dead Horse' To Duck Case, Judge Says
An Illinois judge on Thursday refused to reconsider his decision to let an investment company move ahead with its lawsuit accusing Perkins Coie of helping the company's former investment manager steal $12 million and opted not to certify questions raised by the firm about his reasoning to the Illinois Supreme Court.
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April 18, 2024
$550K Fingerprint BIPA Deal Receives Ill. Judge's Initial OK
An Illinois federal judge gave his early blessing Wednesday to a nearly $550,000 settlement between global food supplier Rich Products Corp. and hundreds of current and former employees who claimed the company illegally collected and used their scanned fingerprint data.
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April 18, 2024
NCAA Reforms Division I Transfer Rule, Upgrades NIL Policy
The NCAA Division I Council voted unanimously to allow certain transferring student-athletes to be immediately eligible to play on the teams of their new schools, following a multistate antitrust lawsuit challenging current restrictions.
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April 18, 2024
7th Circ. Nom Heads To Senate Despite GOP Backlog Criticism
The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced five judicial nominees Thursday, including U.S. District Judge Nancy L. Maldonado, a nominee for the Seventh Circuit, whom Republicans had questioned about a backlog of cases in her court.
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April 18, 2024
Crowell & Moring Adds Corporate Partners From Neal Gerber
Crowell & Moring LLP has added two longtime partners and practice group leaders from Chicago-based firm Neal Gerber & Eisenberg LLP to help bolster its corporate, mergers and acquisitions and capital markets services and expand its services in the Windy City.
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April 17, 2024
Trial-Ready Paraquat MDL Cases Tossed After Testimony Axed
An Illinois federal judge on Wednesday threw out the first group of trial-ready cases over the herbicide paraquat, agreeing with Syngenta and Chevron that the plaintiffs' expert testimony must be excluded and finding that the cases fail without that testimony.
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April 17, 2024
7th Circ. Affirms Toss Of Indy TV Network's Bias Claims
The Seventh Circuit upheld the lower court's toss of a Black-owned broadcasting company's racial discrimination claims against DirecTV and Dish Network, agreeing that the underlying retransmission negotiation dispute was a matter of bargaining power, not bias.
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April 17, 2024
Walgreens Investors' $36M Deal In Opioid Suit Gets First OK
An Illinois federal judge on Wednesday granted his initial approval of a $36 million settlement to end a stockholder's derivative suit accusing Walgreens and its leadership of failing to limit retail pharmacies from dispensing unreasonable amounts of opioids.
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April 17, 2024
Discovery Sanction Too Severe In $1M Vape Case, Panel Says
An Illinois appeals court has found that a default judgment granted against a vape shop accused of causing a customer's burn injuries, which led to a $1 million bench verdict, was too severe of a sanction for defense counsel's failure to timely comply with certain discovery requests.
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April 17, 2024
Kraft Sued Over Lead Contamination In Lunchables
Kraft has been slapped with a proposed class action over its popular Lunchables snack kits after independent testing of the kits allegedly found that they contained high, though legally allowable, levels of lead and other harmful substances.
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April 17, 2024
Judge Says Ex-Bank Rep Worse Than Robber For Film Fraud
An Illinois federal judge handed down a 2½-year prison sentence Wednesday for a former Citigroup and Wells Fargo financial adviser who admitted to swindling clients out of nearly $1.5 million by soliciting them to invest in purported movie productions, saying the only difference between her and a bank robber is that "she didn't have a mask and a gun."
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April 17, 2024
Ill. BCBS Unit Can't Escape Family's Parity Act, ERISA Suit
An Illinois federal judge declined to toss a lawsuit against an employee health plan and an insurer challenging coverage denials for inpatient mental health treatment, finding the insured family who sued had plausibly alleged the claim denial violated federal benefits and mental health parity laws.
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April 17, 2024
School District To Pay $200K To End EEOC Age Bias Suit
An Illinois school district will pay about $206,000 to bring an end to a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission suit claiming it capped salary increases for teachers over 45 to dodge increased retirement payments, the agency said Wednesday.
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April 16, 2024
7th Circ. Finally Freezes Hytera's $1M-Per-Day Sanctions
The Seventh Circuit on Tuesday halted the daily $1 million fine and sales ban ordered against Hytera Communications for participating in Chinese litigation against a district judge's orders, after previously refusing to save the company from its "self inflicted wounds."
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April 16, 2024
7th Circ. Open To Religious Workers' Visa Rule Challenge
Religious institutions trying to revive their challenge to a visa regulation they contend unfairly strips work authorization from foreign ministers seemed to strike a chord with a Seventh Circuit panel on Tuesday, which suggested the rule might disadvantage religious workers.
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April 16, 2024
Tribes, Lawmakers Call On Biden To Protect Historic Sites
A coalition of Native American tribal communities and federal lawmakers on Tuesday delivered a petition containing more than 800,000 signatures calling on the Biden administration to protect, expand and designate a slew of national monuments and sacred lands under the Antiquities Act.
Expert Analysis
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Compliance Primer: Foreign Investment In US Real Property
The rise in foreign investment in U.S. real property, especially agricultural land, has led to increased national security concerns, meaning it’s important to understand reporting requirements under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act and state-level statutes, and to monitor legislative proposals that could create more stringent reporting and review processes, say attorneys at K&L Gates.
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How Ill. Supreme Court Could Shape Statutory Violation Cases
In Fausett v. Walgreens, the Illinois Supreme Court will take up the question of whether a violation of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act satisfies the injury-in-fact requirement, and any outcome could significantly change the litigation landscape in Illinois, say Donald Patrick Eckler and Joshua Zhao at Freeman Mathis.
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Class Action Defense: Don't Give Up On Bristol-Myers Squibb
Federal appellate court decisions in the six years since the U.S. Supreme Court decided Bristol-Myers Squibb show that it's anyone's ballgame in class action jurisdictional arguments, so defendants are encouraged to consider carefully whether, where and when arguing lack of specific personal jurisdiction may be advantageous, say attorneys at K&L Gates.
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Pro Bono Work Is Powerful Self-Help For Attorneys
Oct. 22-28 is Pro Bono Week, serving as a useful reminder that offering free legal help to the public can help attorneys expand their legal toolbox, forge community relationships and create human connections, despite the challenges of this kind of work, says Orlando Lopez at Culhane Meadows.
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Series
Playing In A Rock Cover Band Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Performing in a classic rock cover band has driven me to hone several skills — including focus, organization and networking — that have benefited my professional development, demonstrating that taking time to follow your muse outside of work can be a boon to your career, says Michael Gambro at Cadwalader.
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Series
The Pop Culture Docket: Judge Espinosa On 'Lincoln Lawyer'
The murder trials in Netflix’s “The Lincoln Lawyer” illustrate the stark contrast between the ethical high ground that fosters and maintains the criminal justice system's integrity, and the ethical abyss that can undermine it, with an important reminder for all legal practitioners, say Judge Adam Espinosa and Andrew Howard at the Colorado 2nd Judicial District Court.
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Calif. Right To Repair Law Highlights A Growing Movement
New legislation in California is a comprehensive victory for the "right to repair" movement — signaling that this push for legal reform represents a multifaceted challenge to the status quo not only on the consumer rights front, but also in the fields of copyright, software, antitrust and warranty law, says Courtney Sarnow at Culhane Meadows.
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Series
In Focus At The EEOC: Advancing Equal Pay
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s recently finalized strategic enforcement plan expresses a renewed commitment to advancing equal pay at a time when employees have unprecedented access to compensation information, highlighting for employers the importance of open communication and ongoing pay equity analyses, say Paul Evans at Baker McKenzie and Christine Hendrickson at Syndio.
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Lessons For Biosimilar And Biologic Antitrust Litigation
Aaron Marks at Cohen Milstein considers emerging ways in which biosimilar markets differ from traditional small-molecule drug markets, and recommends how pharmaceutical antitrust litigators can account for these market dynamics in biosimilar-delay cases.
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Opinion
Newman Suspension Shows Need For Judicial Reform
The recent suspension of U.S. Circuit Judge Pauline Newman following her alleged refusal to participate in a disability inquiry reveals the need for judicial misconduct reforms to ensure that judges step down when they can no longer serve effectively, says Aliza Shatzman at The Legal Accountability Project.
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Calif. Delete Act Paves Way For Data Broker Accountability
California's recent enactment of a law that will allow state residents to delete personal information held by some 500 data brokers shows there is renewed focus on holding an extremely lucrative but underregulated industry accountable — but doing so may require both legislation and litigation, says Karina Puttieva at Cohen Milstein.
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How And Why Your Firm Should Implement Fixed-Fee Billing
Amid rising burnout in the legal industry and client efforts to curtail spending, pivoting to a fixed-fee billing model may improve client-attorney relationships and offer lawyers financial, logistical and stress relief — while still maintaining profit margins, say Kevin Henderson and Eric Pacifici at SMB Law Group.
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Issues Arise As Cos. Shift From Class Actions To Arbitration
As corporations like Epson and Samsung move from class action to arbitration, challenges such as a lack of transparency and delay tactics have emerged, leaving a pressing need for legislative reform to ensure accountability and to uphold the rights of consumers and employees, says former Maine Attorney General Andrew Ketterer.
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Series
Ill. Banking Brief: All The Notable Compliance Updates In Q3
The third quarter of 2023 saw Illinois lawmakers and the state Department of Financial and Professional Regulation focus their attention on expanding access to financial institutions' services and resources, including with increased eligibility for credit union membership and a new data collection regime for licensees, say Mark Svalina and James Morrissey at Vedder Price.
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Opinion
Judicial Independence Needs Defense Amid Political Threats
Amid recent and historic challenges to the judiciary from political forces, safeguarding judicial independence and maintaining the integrity of the legal system is increasingly urgent, says Robert Peck at the Center for Constitutional Litigation.