According to the U.S. Chamber-affiliated Madison County Record, if lawyers are successful in pursuing an Illinois class action against mortgage broker Amerifirst over the meal-interrupting telephonic intrusions, “the lawyers would have to notify each and every aggrieved member of the class with an unsolicited phone call of their own.” (“Our View: All in the Family”, Oct. 28; Ann Knef, “Class plaintiff’s attorney-husband is TCPA specialist”, Oct. 24; “Lakin files class action against mortgage lender over pre-recorded messages”, Oct. 22).
Posts Tagged ‘Illinois’
The right to be injured, redux?
Power tools manufacturer Black & Decker Corp. rejected Victor Breehne for a ”highly wrist-sensitive job” at a Tennessee plant after medical tests suggested that Breehne was vulnerable to carpal-tunnel syndrome. Now he’s suing, charging that the rejection violates the Americans with Disabilities Act:
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has challenged the use of such tests, which aren’t uncommon in manufacturing settings, on ADA grounds. But it lost a federal lawsuit in 2001 against Rockwell Automation Inc. after that company denied jobs to 72 applicants at an Illinois plant.
(Allison Connolly, “B&D sued after it rescinds job offer”, Baltimore Sun, Oct. 16; “Man sues after job offer rescinded over carpal tunnel test”, Reliable Plant, Oct. 17). For the 2002 U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Echabazal v. Chevron, in which the Court (over vociferous protests from some disabled-rights advocates) unanimously ruled that an employer was not obliged to hire a disabled applicant who was at greater risk of injury and death than other workers, see Mar. 1-3, 2002 and links from there.
White House race
This time it’s Ed Murnane of the Illinois Civil Justice League presenting a tour of the various candidates’ stands on civil justice reform (Oct. 15; ritual disclaimer).
October 13 roundup
- Shocker- Washington state trial lawyers lie in ad promoting litigation windfall referendum. [The Olympian; Reject R-67]
- Mississippi AG Jim Hood rewards his out-of-state trial-lawyer campaign donors. [Hattiesburg American]
- Update: Illinois Justice Robert R. Thomas settles his libel case; sued reporter is unrepentant. [Law.com]
- Update: Cop withdraws slip-and-fall lawsuit; department placed her on paid leave and is investigating [South Florida Sun-Sentinel]
- Update: 1-800-Flowers suit dismissed on technicality; plaintiff adulterer vows to refile in New York. [On Point]
- Update: Court reverses injunction in whales v. US Navy sonar lawsuit, but lawyers vow to keep trying. [Bashman roundup]
- Wrongful sermon a cause of action? [On Point]
- Don’t expect your rapist to be convicted by a Philadelphia jury. [Philly Magazine]
- Facebook as treasure-mine for litigation evidence. [Law.com]
- Dry-cleaners can bring frivolous lawsuits, too. [New York Post]
Watch what you say about lawyers dept.: Amiel Cueto
A month ago St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan wrote a less-than-respectful column reporting on the course of a controversial defamation suit filed by disbarred local attorney Amiel Cueto. Now Cueto has notified McClellan that he regards him as having acted as an “agent” of the defendant in the suit, the Madison-St. Clair Record, and he’s threatening him with compulsory process as a witness. McClellan, whom Overlawyered readers will remember as having been the target of appalling legal bullying from Metro-East plaintiff’s lawyers in the past, retains his cheerful tone in a new column. (Bill McClellan, “Amiel Cueto has a gift, or maybe he doesn’t”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Aug. 31; “Accusations, lawsuit make me nostalgic”, Sept. 30).
The underlying action arose from an item that ran in the U.S. Chamber-supported Madison-St. Clair Record on Jan. 30, 2006, alleging that Cueto, who served six years in prison on an obstruction of justice conviction, had been spied at a meeting of St. Clair County judges. “Once one of the most powerful lawyers in Southern Illinois, Cueto was said to have ‘owned’ fifteen of St. Clair County’s seventeen judges in the mid-1990s,” the column further asserted. Cueto sued the paper, in a hard-fought action currently in process. In other actions, as Ted noted Feb. 26, Cueto has sued the Illinois Civil Justice League and its political action committee over a campaign ad, and a local resident over a letter to the editor in the Belleville, Ill. News-Democrat (Malcolm Gay, “Power Broken”, Riverfront Times, Sept. 5; Ann Knef, “Amiel Cueto takes aim at ICJL”, Madison-St. Clair Record, Feb. 20; ICJL, Dec. 4, 2006).
Class action lawyers: give us a live client to replace our dead one
Clients as figureheads dept.: One of the Lakin Law Firm’s class actions hit a snag when the firm discovered that the named plaintiff, Manuel Hernandez, had died two years earlier. And so the law firm petitioned an Illinois court to force the defendant, American Family Insurance, to release customer names so that it could more conveniently line up a new client and keep the action going. (Steve Korris, “American Family should provide name of live plaintiff to substitute dead one, attorneys argue”, Madison St. Clair Record, Sept. 13).
Judy Cates running for judgeship
Longtime readers of this site may remember attorney Judy Cates of Swansea, Ill., who filed and later settled a defamation lawsuit against St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan over a humorous and disrespectful column McClellan had written regarding a controversial class-action settlement Cates and other lawyers had reached with magazine sweepstakes firm Publishers Clearing House (Nov. 4 and Nov. 30, 1999; Feb. 29, 2000; for other watch-what-you-say-about-lawyers cases from Madison County and thereabouts, see Dec. 23, 2004). More recently, Ms. Cates served as elected president of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association (Jul. 3, 2006). And now she’s thrown her hat into the ring for a seat on the state Fifth District Appellate Court, which sprawls over 37 counties. She’ll mount a challenge in the February Democratic primary to Jim Wexstten, who was appointed this year to fill a vacancy on the court and who is regarded as a moderate-to-conservative Democrat. The Post-Dispatch’s coverage forgivingly (or perhaps prudently) does not mention her having sued the paper’s columnist (Adam Jadhav, “Swansea lawyer to challenge appointee for judgeship”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Aug. 25; Nicholas J.C. Pistor, “Lawyer’s entry heats up race for appellate court”, Aug. 28; “Not recommended” (editorial), Madison County Record, Aug. 18).
Updates – September 7
Some updates to earlier stories we’ve covered:
- Spyware maker Zango, which embarked on a strategy of suing all the anti-spyware vendors that were calling its products spyware, has dropped its lawsuit against PC Tools, the maker of Spyware Doctor. (We covered the filing of the lawsuit on May 23.) Presumably it chose to drop the suit because it just lost a similar one against Kapersky Lab, with a federal court ruling that antispyware companies’ decisions of this sort are protected from suit.
Eric Goldman has the details, including links to all the relevant decisions.
- We reported on August 21st on the “crackpot” libel suit against blogger PZ Myers for an unflattering book review. Stuart Pivar, who filed the suit to great derision in the blogosphere, apparently dropped the suit a week later. (Even if the suit had legal merit, it was filed in the wrong court, so dismissal was just bowing to the inevitable; in theory, Pivar could refile in the appropriate court, but after the way constitutional law professor Peter Irons dissected the complaint, I think Myers ought to feel safe.) Free hint to readers: defamation lawsuits are almost always a bad idea. All they do is provide publicity to the very claims one is trying to suppress. Defamation lawsuits against prominent bloggers are even less sensible.
- Two years ago, the Illinois Supreme Court put an end to one of the more fraudulent “consumer fraud” lawsuits ever filed, a $10 billion lawsuit against Philip Morris for marketing “light” cigarettes in accordance with federal guidelines. But even though the state’s highest court ordered the case to be dismissed, Madison County repeat offender Steve Tillery went back to a local court run by notorious Judge Nicholas Byron and tried to reopen the lawsuit. Finally, last month the Illinois Supreme Court definitively slapped down Tillery, telling Byron to dismiss the case.
(Overlawyered’s sister site Point of Law has been covering this case.)
Illinois court: Taxpayers not responsible for porch collapse
In June 2003, there was a tragic porch collapse at an apartment building in Chicago; 13 people were killed and at least 50 more were injured. The quest for deep pockets began; as we discussed in August 2005, even though the porch was on private property, trial lawyers aimed their litigation guns at the city of Chicago, on the theory that Chicago taxpayers have more money than the building owner if city inspectors had done a better job, the accident wouldn’t have happened.
A trial judge bought that argument, but yesterday, in a victory for taxpayers, an appellate court reversed that ruling, holding that, contrary to the theory of the trial lawyers, the city is not a guarantor that nothing bad will ever happen within its city limits. The mere fact that the city inspectors failed to issue violation notices for the porch construction does not make the city financially liable for the collapse; if it did, then the potential to extend liability to taxpayers would be limited only by the imagination of the trial lawyer. Police fail to stop a driver who’s speeding, and he later hits you? Blame the city. Inspectors don’t make your neighbor cut down the dead tree on his property, and it falls on your house during a storm? Blame the city. The possibilities are endless.
The victims of the accident do have a legitimate case — but that legitimate case is against the building landlord, not taxpayers. But those deep pockets aren’t quite deep enough, so the trial lawyers aren’t satisfied with that answer:
But plaintiffs’ lawyers said that was not enough.
Pappas and his companies have about $17 million in insurance coverage, said Terry Ekl, who represents the family of Robert Koranda, who died in the collapse.
“Without the City of Chicago in the case, these families are not going to get anywhere near fair compensation,” Ekl said.
If the Appellate Court’s ruling stands, the plaintiffs would take up the issue with state lawmakers, Murphy said.
“We’re going to be having our clients go down to the legislature and say, ‘You can’t be letting this happen,’ ” Murphy said. “These children cannot have died or be injured in vain.’
Yep; they’re not doing it for their own bank accounts; rather, this is For the Children™.
Update: restaurant dropped from Josh Hancock suit
St. Louis: “The family of late Cardinals pitcher Josh Hancock dropped a wrongful-death lawsuit against Mike Shannon’s restaurant stemming from the player’s death in April.” The family and its lawyers had been widely criticized (May 24, May 29, etc.) for the breadth of the net they cast in their lawsuit, including the driver and owner of the tow truck into which Hancock smashed, and “the driver of a disabled car on the highway whom the tow truck driver had stopped to help”. (“Shannon’s restaurant dropped from wrongful-death lawsuit”, ESPN, Jun. 30).