Illinois lawyers have established their state as the new hotbed of junk-fax litigation, according to Chicago Business. “In 2002 in Downstate St. Clair County, a Circuit Court judge ordered Seventeen Motors Inc. to pay $7 million for sending about 33,000 unsolicited faxes.” Cleveland-based Charter One Bank recently “agreed to pay $1.8 million for sending unsolicited faxes to about 70,000 phone numbers.” And “Cook County Circuit Court Judge Patrick McGann alone has since 2002 presided over more than 100 lawsuits, all seeking class action status, filed against senders of junk faxes.” Particularly active in the business: Daniel Edelman and his firm of Edelman Combs Latturner & Goodwin LLC. (Shruti Dat? Singh, “An IL industry: junk-fax law suits”, Chicago Business, Dec. 12). For more on junk-fax litigation, see Mar. 19, 2004, Jul. 19, 2003, etc.
Posts Tagged ‘Illinois’
More Madison County forum shopping follies
Luke Lindau lives in a Chicago suburb and suffers from mesothelioma. He sued 59 different defendants for his personal injuries in Madison County; many defendants, expecting to be railroaded, don’t even bother to litigate asbestos cases once they’ve been sued in Madison County (Point of Law Oct. 5 and links therein), so he became a millionaire from the settlements–not bad for a retired 78-year-old who has already exceeded average life expectancy. However, Lindau made his way into Madison County by claiming that he was exposed to asbestos during the construction of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 1959-1962. Unfortunately for this theory, it was SIU-Carbondale that was being built then; ground wasn’t broken on the Edwardsville campus until 1963. So the two remaining deep pocket defendants actually insisted on protecting their rights and appealed the venue decision. The plaintiff settled–either to get money immediately or to avoid an adverse precedent for future plaintiffs, though his lawyer, Scott Hendler, has the chutzpah to complain about the “abuse of process” of the appeal. It’s not clear whether the two last settling defendants paid more than nuisance sums, as Hendler elides the issue in his discussion with the reporter. (Brian Brueggeman, “Man reaches $4 million deal in asbestos lawsuit”, Belleville News-Democrat, Dec. 8).
Madison County Record
We’ve had occasion to praise the story-digging prowess of this recently launched southern Illinois publication. Now the Washington Post is reporting (Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, “Advocacy Groups Blur Media Lines”, Dec. 6) that it’s being backed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is eager to shed light on the county’s peculiar legal culture. Hmmm. Maybe they’re following the advice Irving Kristol used to dispense: “Got a problem? Start a magazine.” More: Paul Hampel, “New newspaper is partly owned by U.S. Chamber of Commerce”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dec. 8; “Journalism: Do you believe it?” (editorial), Dec. 10.
Victory in Illinois
In another spectacular rebuke for the proponents of gun-control-through-litigation, the Illinois Supreme Court has unanimously tossed out both Chicago’s lawsuit and a lawsuit by private parties seeking to hold gun companies liable for “negligent marketing” and alleging that sales of guns at suburban gun shops constitute a public nuisance along the lines of smoke or stray animals. (John O’Connor, “Chicago gun suits tossed”, AP/Chicago Tribune, Nov. 18). Chicago’s case had been thrown out by a trial court (see Sept. 20, 2000) and then reinstated by an appeals court before yesterday’s denouement. The Illinois Supreme Court is considered among the nation’s most unfriendly by business defendants, but Chicago’s theories were too extreme and too unrooted in precedent to pass muster even there. (City of Chicago v. Beretta; Young v. Bryco Arms). Smallest Minority has much more on the decisions (Nov. 18).
Most of the 30+ municipal gun suits have now been dismissed, but the burden of fighting the litigation has been a crushing one for many defendants, which are often small and family-owned. Their tormentors in the Brady Campaign and other anti-gun groups — funded by George Soros as well as deep-pocketed foundations — show no signs of relenting in their strategy of filing an unending series of flimsy suits in an attempt to achieve through lawyering what voters have denied them at the ballot box. Federal pre-emption, as discussed yesterday, is thus more needed than ever; and it would also help if courts began considering the issuance of sanctions against the groups that file such meritless suits. Update Nov. 22: Steve Chapman comments.
Illinois alienation of affection
While just about everything else has become more actionable in today’s compensation culture, there has been a countertrend in family law. Most states have barred suits for the ancient tort of “alienation of affection” by jilted spouses. Utah (May 18, 2000) and North Carolina are exceptions, as is Illinois; there, Steven Cyl is suing a neighbor he says stole his wife. “Is this thing for real?” asks the defendant. Previous Illinois alienation-of-affection plaintiffs include the always-entertaining ex-Rep. Mel “Did I win the Lotto?” Reynolds, whose case was thrown out for unspecified reasons. (Steve Patterson, “‘This guy, he ruined my life’ — so man sues”, Chicago Sun-Times, Nov. 15 (via Bashman); “Former Congressman Mel Reynolds takes estranged wife’s lover to court”, Jet, Aug. 12, 2002; “Davidson Wrestling Coach Awarded $1.4 Million For ‘Theft of Wife?s Heart'”, North Carolina Lawyers Weekly, May 23, 2001). The ever-obnoxious Pat Buchanan approves. (“What is a Family Worth?”, Aug. 11, 1997; Hutelmyer v. Cox (N.C. App. 1999)).
Madison County: let the joyous news be spread…
Tuesday’s judicial election results in the notorious Illinois county amounted to a “cataclysmic” defeat for the county’s powerful personal-injury lawyers: “I feel like a Munchkin who just came out and saw the house drop on the witch,” said [longtime prosecutor Don] Weber, who ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for the Supreme Court in 1992. “A lot of us are going around today saying, ‘Did the house really drop on the witch?'” (Paul Hampel, “Karmeier win means big changes in Madison County, prosecutor says”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Nov. 3). For others who might wish to celebrate, here’s a song page. (& see PointOfLaw coverage, here, here, here, here, and here). More: Madison County Record, Nov. 5, Nov. 7.
Ballot measure results
As I documented through the night at PointOfLaw.com, voters gave doctors and the business community some major victories in yesterday’s ballot measures. Limits on malpractice lawyers’ fees passed resoundingly in Florida, in a stinging rebuke to the trial bar. Among three other states considering med-mal ballot measures, doctors won decisively in Nevada and lost in Wyoming, while Oregon’s measure was slightly trailing but too close to call. (Update Nov. 9: late returns show one of the two Wyoming measures apparently passing after all.)
In California, in a convincing victory for the business community and good sense, voters approved Proposition 64 by a wide margin, requiring lawyers to demonstrate actual injury before invoking the state’s broad unfair-practices statute in private cases. (Thank you, Arnold.) Colorado voters lopsidedly defeated a trial-lawyer-sponsored measure to expand litigation over alleged construction defects. And in the two hot judicial contests, for seats on the Illinois and West Virginia Supreme Courts, trial-lawyer-backed candidates lost in both. Details on all these races can be found on PointOfLaw.com. Also, voters ignored this site’s advice and passed all eleven state marriage amendments on the ballot.
Finally, some politicians whose ambitions this website has followed were locked in too-close-to-call races: Washington state AG Christine Gregoire (see Oct. 28) was slightly trailing a GOP opponent in her bid for governor, while former trial lawyer lobbyist and Bush HUD secretary Mel Martinez (see Sept. 3) was leading by 80,000 votes in his Florida Senate race against Democrat Betty Castor. (Update: Martinez wins). John Edwards’s vice-presidential ambitions seem at the moment to depend on an unlikely reversal of Ohio results in late vote counting, while his home state of North Carolina went Republican both in the presidential race and in filling Edwards’s old seat. (Update: Kerry and Edwards concede).
Bank error not in your favor, collect $250,000
Illinois: “A Madison County woman hopes that at least $250,000 will sufficiently relieve emotional distress she suffered when Bank One allegedly failed to remove unauthorized charges from her account.” Marsha Eubanks is “[r]epresented by Lakin Law Firm attorney Thomas Maag, son of Illinois Supreme Court Justice candidate Gordon E. Maag”. (Steve Gonzalez, “Woman hopes $250k will bring peace of mind”, Madison County Record, Oct. 19).
“Ford wins cop-car suit”
In Belleville, Ill., a St. Clair County jury has ruled that the Ford Motor Co.’s Crown Victoria police cruiser is not defective and not unreasonably susceptible to fuel-fed fires after high-speed rear-end collisions. A class action on behalf of Illinois police departments had been filed in the famously pro-plaintiff county. The verdict represents a rebuke to trial lawyers who’ve been campaigning nationally for some time against the vehicle: see Nov. 5, 2003 and Sept. 29, 2004. (Bloomberg/Detroit Free Press, Oct. 16; Beth Hundsdorfer, “Ford earns victory in police car suit”, Belleville News-Democrat, Oct. 16).
Election roundup: down the ticket…
Won’t we all be glad when it’s over:
* At Point of Law, I’ve got a post up tracking the current status of the propositions on four states’ ballots that would limit medical malpractice litigation or fees. The situation in Florida looks grim for doctors who’ve pushed such curbs (they’ve been outspent by their lawyer opponents, $22 million to $7 million). Voters in Nevada, Oregon and Wyoming may be better disposed toward their states’ ballot measures.
* On Friday, Ted posted about how critics of trial lawyers are getting sued for running an ad commenting on the Illinois Supreme Court race. Unfortunately, that’s just one of numerous instances in which criticizing the Litigation Lobby in paid advertisements is itself getting to be legally hazardous. In a new post at Point of Law, I list two other recent instances.
* Both the New York Times and the National Law Journal are out with stories on the very nasty and expensive battles between business interests and trial lawyers in state supreme court races, especially those in West Virginia (see May 13, etc.) and Illinois (Adam Liptak, “Judicial Races in Several States Become Partisan Battlegrounds”, Oct. 24; Emily Heller, “Judicial Races Get Meaner”, National Law Journal, Oct. 25).
* “Voters may run a gantlet of lawyers before reaching the ballot box on Nov. 2.” The two major parties are deploying lawyers by the thousand to challenge state procedures and individual votes (Miles Benson, “Voting in a Battleground State? Prepare to Meet a Lawyer at the Polls”, syndicated/Newhouse, Oct. 23).