In this trip and fall case, a customer, Matthews, sustained injuries when he tripped over a piece of metal that was jutting out of a fuel pump island at a gas station. The First District Illinois Appellate Court ruled on a few appellate issues. The two most significant have to…
Shane Kolody was traveling on Amtrak with $280,000 in small bills. The government seized the money, then sued to keep it pursuant to the Illinois Drug Forfeiture Act. Kolody’s motion to dismiss the State’s amended complaint was denied. But his motion for reconsideration, based on misapplication of the forfeiture law,…
A referendum was held to determine whether the voters wanted liquor to be sold at retail in their precincts. The ballots were printed in English, Spanish, and Chinese. These consolidated lawsuits considered whether the translation of “sale at retail” to Chinese was substantial compliance with the statutory requirements of the…
In this election law case, the incumbent disputed her challenger’s petition signatures. The incumbent claimed that the challenger sat in her car while others approached voters’ houses and obtained nomination petition signatures. The incumbent signed the petitions as the circulator, who the statute requires to be present when the petition…
A prison inmate filed a class action complaint against the Illinois Department of Corrections. He asserted that a co-payment charged to indigent inmates for non-emergency medical and dental services was improper. The issue was whether the DOC’s definition of “indigent” (unable to pay the co-payment for the entire time of…
The Illinois State Board of Elections found that Victor Santana violated the state Election Code in connection with his financial support of a judicial candidate in a primary election. Santana did not file appropriate organizational or disclosure statements even though he paid in excess of $3,000 for a campaign mailing.…
Pierre Petrich had tickets to an NSYNC concert. She arrived quite late because, she said, automobile traffic at and near the concert venue was poorly handled. Angry about missing part of the concert, Petrich filed a class action lawsuit against, it seems, almost everyone who had anything to do with…
The City of Chicago and the Chicago Board of Education were denied leave to intervene in a valuation dispute. Reversing the trial court, the First District Appellate Court deviated from the usual standard of review on intervention matters. Here’s the court’s reasoning: An order denying leave to intervene as of…
Abraham Flagg was convicted of distributing cocaine and cocaine base, and of conspiracy to distribute. After a plea deal, he received concurrent sentences of 180 months of imprisonment and 60 months of supervised release. As soon as he began serving it, Flagg violated the terms of his supervised release. He…
A property owner, Burtley, moved to vacate an order of foreclosure that was entered without an evidentiary hearing. He appealed the trial court’s denial of the motion. The parties disputed the appellate standard of review. Burtley asserted review should be de novo “or what he labels an ‘ends of justice’…