That clause means what it says, 
an Illinois appeals court decides in an insurance claim against Enterprise car rental [Madison County Record]
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Posts tagged as:
Illinois
“It was obvious from the facts that she did not intend to steal any items from Wal-Mart,” says Denise Macon’s St. Clair County Circuit Court lawsuit, which seeks $150,000 plus punitive damages. Macon left the store with two unpaid items underneath her purse in the shopping cart, and claims this was just forgetfulness, but Wal-Mart called police who charged her with misdemeanor shoplifting. Macon was acquitted after a two-day trial and says she never should have been charged. The Wal-Mart security officer is a co-defendant, presumably to keep the case in state court by defeating complete diversity. (Kelly Holleran, “Shopper who forgot to pay for pajamas sues Wal-Mart over her arrest”, Madison-St. Clair Record, Oct. 7).
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A spokesman for the prosecutor’s office said the yawn, by a cousin of a drug defendant at his plea, was “a loud and boisterous attempt to disrupt the proceedings”. The Chicago Tribune says the judge in question, Circuit Judge Daniel Rozak of Will County, resorts to contempt findings unusually often. The judge later released Clifton Williams after he had served 21 days. [Chicago Tribune, ABA Journal, Solove/Concurring Opinions]
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Larry Ribstein thinks indignation over political influence on law school admissions would be better directed at the politicians who arm-twist university administrators. Earlier here.
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Influence-peddling at the University of Illinois with state politicians including now-disgraced Gov. Blagojevich, per a Chicago Tribune investigation:
What does it cost to get an unqualified student into the University of Illinois law school?
Five jobs for graduating law students, suggest internal e-mails released Thursday.
The only surprising thing about this stuff is that none of these bigwigs (including a law school dean — apparently she never learned to think like a lawyer) can ever seem to remember that government emails are subject to FOIA requests.
Also in Illinois, a furor has broken out over DePaul’s firing of its law dean, Glen Weissenberger (per Paul Caron) “for reporting truthful information to the ABA in connection with its reaccreditation site visit”. John Steele, Legal Ethics Forum:
For some time now, I’ve been arguing on this blog that the most powerful form of ethics teaching that occurs in law schools is the open and widespread gaming of numbers and statistics for rankings purposes. Students are taught that gaming the numbers and then concealing it, fibbing about it, or rationalizing it, is what grown-ups do for a living in the real world.
More: Above the Law (with emails from U. of I.); Prof. Bainbridge (recalling his days on U of I Law’s admissions committee); and see comments below on this post for views of the DePaul episode differing from those linked above.
Further: The U of I dean at the time says her email remarks were facetious and are being misinterpreted [David Hyman, Volokh]. And Brian Leiter (via Glenn Reynolds): “Attacking university officials over this scandal is like attacking the victim of a robbery for handing over his money…. And, by the way, the same story is waiting to be written about admissions at every state university in the country.”
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They’ve got the Illinois Constitution — or at least their power to read things into the ambiguities and interstices of that document — and they’re not afraid to use it. [ABA Journal] Scott Greenfield has some comments on the equal protection ruling and its policy implications.
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Maybe CPSIA didn’t play so well in downstate Illinois. [Examiner]
- Wisconsin lawyer pressing bill to allow punitive damages against home resellers over claimed defects [Wisconsin State Journal] More: Dad29.
- Longer than her will? NY Times posts ten-page jury questionnaire in Brooke Astor inheritance case ["City Room"] “Supreme Court: No Constitutional Right to Peremptory Challenge” [Anne Reed]
- Georgia’s sex offender law, like Illinois’s, covers persons who never committed a sex crime [Balko]
- “The lawsuits over TVA’s coal ash spill have come from all over Roane County – except the spots closest to home.” [Knoxville News]
- Bootleg soap: residents smuggle detergents after enactment of Spokane phosphate ban [AP/Yahoo]
- UK: Elderly Hindu man in religious-accommodation bid for approval of open-air funeral pyre [Telegraph]
- No DUI, no one hurt, but harsh consequences anyway when Connecticut 18 year old is caught buying six-pack of beer [Fountain]
- Only one or two not covered previously at this site ["12 Most Ridiculous Lawsuits", Oddee]
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- “Illinois trial lawyers take a swing at youth baseball” [Curt Mercadente, Illinois Civil Justice League]
- Luzerne County, Pa. scandal: “Court Filing Says Former Judge Met With Felons Twice a Month” [Legal Intelligencer]
- You’d think Obama could find some person without major-league trial lawyer connections for the cabinet seat on health, but you’d be wrong [Wood, PoL, on Kathleen Sebelius, and earlier on Tom Daschle]
- Remember the many times when town officials do or say something arguably racist and the U.S. Department of Justice opens an investigation? Doesn’t seem to happen with the Detroit City Council [Nolan Finley, Detroit News]
- Copyright enforcement doesn’t scale and that’s another reason its future looks bleak [David Post @ Volokh]
- Thought it wasn’t going to happen? “Some Passengers Mull Lawsuits Over Life-Saving US Airways Crash-Landing” [ABA Journal, WSJ law blog, earlier here and here]
- Sex shop that suddenly appeared in genteel Old Town Alexandria, near D.C. is sort of the zoning equivalent of a spite fence [WaPo]
- Claim of British researchers: lawyers’ IQ-point edge over general public has declined over last decade [The Lawyer]
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- Holman Jenkins on auto bailout [WSJ] Bush’s willingness to use TARP helped the unions scuttle a reasonable deal with Corker; and why exactly did CEO Wagoner commit GM to the (dubious and self-injuring) position that buyers’d abandon the company in the event of a Chapter 11? [Hodak Value h/t Ted] So that’s what dragging Detroit down — domestic partner benefits [Brayton] And Ted wonders if it might be cheaper in the long run for the government just to buy a Senate seat from Gov. Blagojevich for every auto worker;
- Where’d Gov. Blagojevich pick up idea it was OK to sell official acts for $$$? Can’t imagine [Ribstein] Who is Advisor B? [Byron York] Sing, Rod, sing! [Coleman] “Blago’s decision to let SEIU and not AFSCME organize Ill. child-care workers” Hmmm [Freedom-at-Work, NRTW] “How do they think Chi pols talk in private when muscling some guy for cash? Like Helen Mirren playing the queen?” [John Kass, Tribune] A look at AG Lisa Madigan [PoL] Illinois pols have shaken down hospitals before, state’s “certificate of need” (permission-to-build) law is one culprit [StateHouseCall]
- J.K. Galbraith’s best bon mot: “bezzle” = inventory of unexposed embezzlement, revealed as tide of boom recedes [Cox, Breaking Views] Fascinating memoir of why Madoff had been giving off fishy smell for years [Tokyo Cassandra] So sleazy! “Many” investors put $ with Madoff because they suspected he was crooked — but cheating someone else [Blodget] “Madoff didn’t run one of these much-maligned, unregistered hedge funds. He was registered with the SEC. Here’s his latest 13-F, which looks perfectly normal.” [Weisenthal]
- Daily downer for media folk [@themediaisdying h/t @amyfeldman] “Remember, America, you can’t wrap a fish in satellite radio” — P.J. O’Rourke wants bailout for print [The Australian]
- Jurors’ political leanings predict whether they’re pro-plaintiff or defendant? Not as simple as that [Wisconsin Lawyer h/t @juryvox]
- Asbestos rise in Madison County, Illinois could signal return to “old school” tactics [MC Record h/t @icjl]
- Sue me harder, don’t stop now: competing Fla. fetish clubs feud in court, which’ll get whipped? [ABA Journal]
- Russian patent office grants trademark for
emoticon, businessman asking royalties [BBC h/t @bodhi1 @mediadonis] - Arnold Kling: loan modification way oversold as remedy for housing ills [EconLog h/t @tedfrank]
- Best line: “the goose was not our employee or our agent” [CKA Mediation h/t @vpynchon, earlier]
Now-disgraced Gov. Rod Blagojevich pushed Illinois into risky mortgage lending and did his best to politicize housing finance (Carney, Dec. 9).
- Everything that makes Chicago politics what it is: Gov. Blagojevich shook down a children’s hospital [Massie] Time to play Name That Goon: guess which statements are by Illinois governor and which by Tony Soprano [Daily Beast] The most closely watched Obama appointment is and should be the U.S. Attorney for Chicago [@patrickruffini]
- Many writers including me relied on UAW assertion that oft-heard $73/hour figure for GM compensation was misleading because it included vast army of retirees; but per one new paper, the number really does reflect only payments for currently active workers [James Sherk, Heritage] Contra, the New York Times sides with the original critique of the number [David Leonhardt]
- Green activists contact the authorities to report illegal logging, turns out to be beavers [OK!; Poland]
- Pride and Prejudice: the Facebook feed [DeeDee Baldwin]
- Economists invite volunteers to play game simulating investment behavior. Usual result? Bubbles & crashes [Postrel]
- “Watermelon smell”, “ferret odor”, “gasoline fumes”: Japanese site uses Google maps to track stinky locations [Japan Probe via Tyler Cowen]
- Subprime-implosion lawsuits haven’t gone well for plaintiffs, who’ve had trouble showing guilty state of mind [CCH Wall Street] But are things beginning to shift in their favor? [Frankel, American Lawyer]
- Nifty “Atlas of True Country Names” displays place names as their underlying meanings [Telegraph]
One reason of many it’s a bad idea:
[Illinois Gov. Rod] Blagojevich, Harris and others are also alleged [in the federal indictment] to have withheld state assistance to the Tribune Company in connection with the sale of Wrigley Field. The statement says this was done to induce the firing of Chicago Tribune editorial board members who were critical of Blagojevich.
More: Eugene Volokh. Similarly: Patterico.
P.S.: “When the Tribune-owned Chicago Cubs wanted permission to install lights at Wrigley Field, Ald. Ed Vrdolyak let it be known it would require an end to editorial criticism of him. An editorial responded that the Cubs would ‘be playing morning games on a sandlot in Gary first.’ Vrdolyak — this will surprise you — is now headed for prison, another victim of Fitzgerald.” (Steve Chapman, Reason, Dec. 11).
Complainant Rory Beer — yes, her real name, though she used to be known as Rory Roberts — was dancing on the bar at Bar Chicago, a Division Street nightspot, when she fell off, with what her suit says are permanent injuries to her foot and ankle. “The lawsuit claims that Bar Chicago encourages patrons to dance on the bar, but doesn’t warn people of slippery surfaces or provide handrails, ‘cushioned flooring’ or ’safety nets.’” (Mark J. Konkol, “Dancer slips, now she wants bar to pay”, Chicago Sun-Times, Jul. 1; Chicagoist). We covered another bar-wasn’t-safe-for-her-to-dance-on suit, also from Illinois, last year.
The manual for the L120 John Deere mower reads:
DANGER: ROTATING BLADES CUT OFF ARMS AND LEGS
· Do not mow when children or others are around.
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