John W. Darrah

Thomas Pearson donated $1.2 million to Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary to establish a scholarship honoring his parents, with the funds conditioned on supporting Iowa ministry students and subject to transfer to another university if unmet. After alleging the seminary failed to meet those conditions, Pearson sued for breach of contract, fraudulent and negligent misrepresentation, breach of fiduciary duty, and unjust enrichment under Illinois law in a diversity action. The court granted the seminary's motion to dismiss all claims with prejudice under Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6), holding that the written gift agreement contradicted the alleged conditions, no fiduciary relationship arose from the arm's-length transaction, the misrepresentation claims lacked actionable statements, and unjust enrichment could not stand alone.

propertyproceduretorts & liability

Plaintiff Dynamic Fluid Control, a South African valve manufacturer, sued several defendants including International Valve Manufacturing, LLC and its principals for patent infringement of U.S. Patent No. 5,511,577, federal trademark and trade-dress infringement under the Lanham Act for the VENT-O-MAT mark, unfair competition, violations of Illinois trade-secret and consumer-fraud statutes, and unjust enrichment, alleging unauthorized marketing of identical valves after termination of a distributorship. Some defendants moved to dismiss certain claims, and defendant William T. Lang separately moved to dismiss, arguing improper service and non-existence of Pegasus Airline Group, LLC. The court denied both motions in full, holding that the complaint's factual allegations are accepted as true on a motion to dismiss and sufficiently state the claims, that arguments regarding service on a non-existent or d/b/a entity do not require dismissal when the individual defendant is already before the court, and that failure to prove service does not invalidate it under the Federal Rules.

business & regulatoryprocedure

Angela Kent, an African-American woman formerly employed by the City of Chicago's Department of Streets and Sanitation, sued the City alleging violations of the Equal Pay Act and Title VII based on sex and race discrimination after her employment ended in 2008. The City moved for summary judgment, following an earlier dismissal of her Section 1981 and 1983 claims and any untimely Title VII allegations. The court analyzed Kent's claims by examining the City's graded and special-rate salary structures, job classifications, and potential comparators such as Horodecki and Bradley, concluding that Kent failed to identify valid comparators performing substantially equal work or to establish the necessary elements of her prima facie cases under either statute. On that basis, the court granted the City's motion for summary judgment.

labor & employmentcivil rights

In Powell v. West Asset Management, Inc., plaintiff Dominginho Powell sued defendant, a debt collection agency, alleging violations of the TCPA for using an automatic dialing system to make 25 calls to his cell phone in an attempt to collect a debt he did not owe, along with an FDCPA claim. The FDCPA claim settled, mooting one affirmative defense, while the remaining dispute concerned defendant's third affirmative defense of failure to mitigate damages on the TCPA claim. The court granted the motion to strike that defense, holding that the TCPA creates no duty for recipients to mitigate statutory damages by answering or returning calls, as the statute lacks such a requirement and FCC guidance plus other court rulings confirm recipients need not take steps to stop the calls.

business & regulatoryprocedure

This case under the federal Clean Air Act concerns allegations that Midwest Generation and related entities violated the Prevention of Significant Deterioration provisions by operating coal-fired power plants that had been modified without required preconstruction permits by a prior owner, ComEd. Plaintiffs, including the United States, Illinois, and citizen groups, sought civil penalties and injunctive relief, asserting continuing violations and successor liability via an asset purchase agreement. The court addressed motions to dismiss the amended complaints, holding that the law-of-the-case doctrine did not bar new allegations of transferred liability because the theory had not been properly presented or litigated earlier. It further noted that PSD requirements apply to construction at the time it occurs and do not independently prohibit subsequent operation without a permit, while certain penalty claims remained time-barred.

environmentbusiness & regulatory

Plaintiff Chris Muczynski sued the City of Chicago, Village of Melrose Park, and various police officers, alleging false arrest on battery charges for an incident he did not commit, along with a class-of-one equal-protection claim based on alleged animus stemming from his prior work as an auxiliary officer. The defendants moved to dismiss the equal-protection claim in the Second Amended Complaint. The court granted the motions and dismissed the claim, holding that the plaintiff failed to plead with specificity that similarly situated individuals were treated differently by not being subjected to falsified evidence or arrest. The opinion emphasized that class-of-one claims require allegations showing the plaintiff was singled out without a rational basis relative to others in comparable circumstances, to avoid converting ordinary tort claims into constitutional violations.

criminal lawcivil rightsprocedure

Plaintiff Rafael DeJesus sued his former employer Contour Landscaping after returning from leave for a work-related back injury, claiming retaliatory discharge under the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act, ancestry discrimination under Title VII and 42 U.S.C. § 1981, disability discrimination under the ADA, and retaliation under Title VII and the ADA. Contour moved for summary judgment on all counts. The court granted the motion in part and denied it in part after reviewing the parties’ undisputed facts about the plaintiff’s supervisory role, the company’s decision to create and fill a new Snow Removal Manager position externally while he was on leave, and the legal standards for each claim.

labor & employmentcivil rights

Global NAPs Illinois sued the Illinois Commerce Commission in federal district court, challenging the ICC's ruling on an Interconnection Agreement with AT&T Illinois under the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The dispute centered on whether Global owed charges for DS3 facilities, transiting traffic to third parties, and terminating traffic to end users, particularly after Global shifted from dial-up internet services to handling VoIP aggregator traffic in a manner not originally contemplated by the ICA. Five of Global's seventeen claims were dismissed as time-barred, and the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment on the remaining twelve counts. The court reviewed the ICC's administrative decision based solely on the administrative record to determine if the agreement complied with §§ 251 and 252 of the Act.

business & regulatoryfederal power

This case involves a dispute between Illinois Bell Telephone Co. (AT&T Illinois) and Global NAPs Illinois, Inc. over an interconnection agreement (ICA) approved by the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) under the Telecommunications Act of 1996. After Global refused to pay for services provided under the ICA, the ICC ordered payment, but Global did not comply; AT&T then sued under the Illinois Public Utilities Act to enforce the order and recover damages, while Global filed a counterclaim seeking a set-off for alleged unpaid reciprocal compensation. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the court granted judgment to AT&T on its claim and on the counterclaim. The court reasoned that Global had failed to pay the amounts ordered by the ICC, that the invoices underlying the counterclaim were disputed based on usage records and had not been substantiated by Global, and that no genuine issues of material fact existed.

business & regulatory

Neutral Tandem, Inc. sued Peerless Network, LLC alleging infringement of its U.S. Patent No. 7,123,708, which addresses efficient routing of local transit traffic between telecommunications carriers through a neutral tandem network as an alternative to direct connections or reliance on incumbent carrier tandems. Peerless counterclaimed for a declaration of non-infringement and invalidity. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the court granted Peerless's motion after construing the patent claims to require local-area transit traffic management and finding that the earlier Wiley Patent anticipated those claims by disclosing a comparable network. The court therefore held the '708 Patent invalid, ruled that Peerless did not infringe, denied Neutral Tandem's motions, and entered judgment accordingly.

business & regulatoryprocedure

The United States and Illinois sued Midwest Generation under the Clean Air Act, alleging that the company violated Prevention of Significant Deterioration provisions by operating six coal-fired power plants in Illinois that had been modified without required permits or installation of best available control technology by the prior owner, Commonwealth Edison. Midwest Generation moved to dismiss the PSD counts. The court examined whether current operators can be liable for prior owners' unpermitted modifications and whether civil penalty claims are barred by the statute of limitations. It held that PSD obligations attach to the person performing the modification rather than subsequent operators of the source, rejected a continuing-violation theory for ongoing operation without permits, and found the claims time-barred to the extent they sought penalties.

environmentbusiness & regulatory

Catherine McLachlan challenged the Social Security Administration's denial of her request to reopen a 1998 SSI disability benefits application, after her 2005 application was granted but only from the later filing date. The court addressed the Commissioner's motion to dismiss the Third Amended Complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The court granted the motion and dismissed the case, reasoning that federal district courts have jurisdiction under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g) only over final SSA decisions made after a hearing, and a refusal to reopen is not such a decision unless it involves a constitutional claim or amounts to a constructive reopening on the merits, neither of which was shown here.

federal powerprocedure

In Vazquez v. Central States Joint Board, four plaintiffs who held appointed and elected positions in a union and its affiliated local unions sued the union defendants and individual officials, alleging that their removals from office, layoffs, and expulsions from membership violated rights under the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) and other laws. The district court granted summary judgment to individual defendants Spano and Torello on all remaining claims and to the union defendants on most claims, but denied summary judgment to the union defendants on the LMRDA § 101(a)(5) claims concerning expulsion from membership. The court denied summary judgment on the defendants' counterclaims for breach of contract and fiduciary duty because the issues were inadequately briefed. The rulings rested on undisputed facts regarding grievance arbitrations that upheld the employment actions, procedural requirements under union constitutions, and the absence of viable claims against the individuals.

labor & employmentprocedure

This case involves plaintiff Dominic Basile suing debt collector Blatt, Hasenmiller, Leibsker & Moore, LLC under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act for filing a small claims lawsuit to collect on an alleged credit card debt that Basile disputed. Basile argued the action was time-barred by a five-year statute of limitations and unsupported by documentation showing he owed the debt. The court denied the parties' cross-motions for summary judgment, concluding that genuine issues of material fact remain regarding the applicable limitations period under Illinois law, whether Basile actually owed the debt, what evidence the defendant possessed, and whether the bona fide error defense applies.

business & regulatory

This case concerned whether an employee's post-petition employment discrimination claims against United Airlines were discharged by the confirmation of the company's Chapter 11 reorganization plan. Nazir, a mechanic terminated in 2005, filed a state-court suit alleging discrimination based on color, religion, and national origin for conduct during the bankruptcy; United sought contempt sanctions, arguing the claims were barred under 11 U.S.C. § 1141(d). The bankruptcy court denied relief, holding that 28 U.S.C. § 959(a) permitted the suit for acts during the bankruptcy and that Nazir lacked adequate notice of the plan's administrative claims bar date. On appeal, the district court reversed in part, ruling that the post-petition pre-confirmation claims were discharged by the plan confirmation and remanding for further consideration of sanctions, while affirming the denial of contempt on other grounds.

labor & employmentbusiness & regulatorycivil rightsprocedure

The case involves a tenured English professor at College of Lake County who sued the college, its board, and a former dean, alleging race, national origin, and disability discrimination as well as retaliation under federal statutes including 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Title VII, the ADA, and related state constitutional and statutory provisions. The plaintiff claimed the dean harassed her through pay docking, denial of benefits, excessive monitoring, and other actions tied to her African-American and Puerto Rican heritage and multiple sclerosis, which worsened her condition and forced a medical leave; she also asserted the college failed to address her internal complaints. On the defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, the court granted the motion in part and denied it in part, dismissing claims under § 1981 entirely, certain time-barred Title VII and ADA allegations, individual liability against the dean under those statutes, equal-protection-based retaliation under § 1983, and Illinois Human Rights Act claims, while permitting due-process claims, some timely discrimination and retaliation claims against the college and board, and related state constitutional claims to proceed. The rulings rested on pleading standards from Twombly, applicable statutes of limitations and EEOC charge-filing periods, limits on individual liability, exclusive jurisdiction rules, and the sufficiency of allegations to support the surviving causes of action.

civil rightslabor & employmentprocedure

This case involves multiple consolidated petitions by Good Karma, LLC and related entities to quash IRS summonses and document requests issued as part of audits examining their involvement in Distressed Asset and Debt (DAD) tax shelters, which generated large claimed tax losses from distressed Brazilian consumer receivables. The court decided to deny the petitions to quash and enforce the IRS summonses. The core reasoning was that the IRS met the requirements for enforcement of summonses by showing a legitimate purpose in investigating potential tax shelter transactions, and the petitioners failed to demonstrate bad faith, abuse of process, or violations of constitutional rights such as free speech or due process.

taxesbusiness & regulatoryfederal power