With the September term approaching and two new civil decisions being filed, coverage of the Illinois Supreme Court has picked up recently in the news and on the blogs. At the Madison St. Clair Record, Bethany Krajelis had this story about competing amicus briefs filed with the Court in Fennell v. Illinois Central Railroad Co., … Continue Reading
By any definition, it’s a crisis: your client receives a summons and complaint for a putative class action in Federal court. Can you close down the case in the starting gate by just giving the named plaintiff what he or she wants — filing a Rule 68 Offer of Judgment for all requested relief, plus … Continue Reading
In its other opinion this morning, the Illinois Supreme Court handed down its decision in Santiago v. E. W. Bliss Co. [pdf] Santiago is a products liability case (see here for our preview of the opinion). Plaintiff Rogasciano Santiago allegedly entered the United States illegally in 1993, coming to Chicago. After working at two jobs under his true … Continue Reading
This morning, the Illinois Supreme Court handed down its decision in Doe v. White [pdf]. Doe arises from a teacher sexual abuse case. As explained in detail here, a grade school teacher was disciplined for sexual misconduct by his then-employer, the McLean County School District. Rather than reporting the matter to state authorities, McLean purportedly took a … Continue Reading
Of course, stage names are commonplace in Hollywood. Pen names are relatively common among authors as well. But can you sue under a pen name? Well – only for a very good reason. Nearly all states have a “fictitious names” statute. In Illinois, the statute is 735 ILCS 5/2-401, and it says that unless a party name is … Continue Reading
The Illinois Supreme Court will release two civil opinions tomorrow [pdf]. While we await the opinions, here’s a preview of the first case, Doe v. White [pdf]. Doe arises from a sexual abuse case against a second-grade teacher in Urbana. The victims and their mothers sued not only the Urbana school district and various administrators, but also the … Continue Reading
The Ninth Circuit has provided product manufacturers some potent ammunition in their ongoing efforts to keep hindsight bias from infecting the scope of their constructive knowledge in failure-to-warn claims. In defending such claims, manufacturers often struggle to define what risks associated with their products were “knowable” from the scientific literature (and thus within the scope of … Continue Reading
As we noted here, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in Stengel v. Medtronic Inc. (676 F.3d 1159 (9th Cir. 2012)) left plaintiffs who sue the manufacturers of pre-market approved devices precious little in the way of potential state-law claims that are not expressly preempted by Riegel or impliedly preempted by Buckman. In fact, the … Continue Reading