Charles Petros Kocoras

The case involves a plaintiff who received nine automated calls from a debt collection firm using a predictive dialer on their cell phone, which were intended for another person and left a prerecorded message without proper identification. The plaintiff brought claims under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) for unauthorized automated calls to a cellular number and under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) for failing to meaningfully disclose the caller's identity. The defendant moved to dismiss, arguing that the plaintiff lacked standing under the TCPA as an unintended recipient and failed to state an FDCPA claim. The court denied the motion, ruling that the plaintiff had statutory standing because they were the regular user of the phone and actually received the calls, and that the complaint sufficiently alleged violations of both statutes.

procedurebusiness & regulatory

Isabelle Blasdel, formerly an Associate Professor at Northwestern University, sued the university under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, claiming gender discrimination in the denial of her tenure application in 2007 and the resulting termination of her employment. The court granted Northwestern’s motion for summary judgment on the remaining claim. In its analysis, the court treated certain pre-2006 events as time-barred background evidence only, found that comments by faculty members were non-discriminatory stray remarks unrelated to the tenure decision, and concluded that Blasdel had not produced evidence sufficient to satisfy the indirect method of proving discrimination because her research output and funding record did not meet the university’s tenure standards.

labor & employmentcivil rights

This case involves a dispute between photographer Daniel Schrock and toy companies Learning Curve International and RC2 over the terms of an oral licensing agreement for approximately 1,800 photographs of toys taken for marketing purposes. Schrock claimed he granted only a limited two-year license for specific uses like packaging and catalogs, while the defendants asserted an unlimited license except for national advertising. The court denied the defendants' motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and their motion for summary judgment, finding genuine issues of material fact regarding the existence and terms of the oral contract under Illinois law. The court also rejected the statute of frauds defense because Schrock had fully performed his obligations.

propertyprocedure

The case involved a dispute between uBID, an Illinois-based online auction company, and GoDaddy, an Arizona domain registration company, over GoDaddy's services to third parties who registered domain names similar to uBID's trademarks. uBID sued GoDaddy in federal court in Illinois under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, alleging that GoDaddy trafficked in or used the marks with bad faith intent to profit. The court granted GoDaddy's motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, finding that GoDaddy had insufficient contacts with Illinois for either general or specific jurisdiction, as it had no physical presence there, its services were automated and not expressly aimed at the state, and there was no evidence it knew its actions would cause harm to uBID specifically in Illinois. The alternative motion to transfer venue was denied as moot.

business & regulatoryprocedure

In 1980, the United States sued the Chicago Board of Education, alleging that it had operated a dual school system that segregated students by race and ethnicity in violation of the Equal Protection Clause and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through practices such as manipulating attendance boundaries, assigning teachers by race, and maintaining overcrowded schools. The parties resolved the suit with a Consent Decree under which the Board committed to desegregating schools where feasible and providing supplemental programs for remaining segregated schools; the Board complied with the decree for more than twenty years without objection from the United States. In 2009, the district court terminated and vacated the decree, reasoning that material changes in the city's student demographics, statutory reforms decentralizing school governance, the Board's long record of compliance, and the fact that the decree's remaining provisions largely duplicated existing state law on bilingual education had rendered the decree unnecessary and beyond the scope of the original complaint.

civil rights

This case involves a wrongful death suit filed by the administrator of Joyce Chiriboga's estate after she was struck and killed by an Amtrak train while crossing tracks at a Metra station in Chicago. The plaintiff alleged negligence against Amtrak, Metra, and Canadian Pacific, plus willful and wanton conduct against Metra, based on the train's speed, lack of horn warning, and failure to communicate train positions or provide adequate warnings at the pedestrian crosswalk. The court granted motions to dismiss by Metra and Canadian Pacific, finding that Metra was protected by Illinois tort immunity for failure to provide traffic control devices and that Canadian Pacific owed no duty as a remote dispatcher, but denied Amtrak's motion because common-law duties applied and the complaint plausibly stated a negligence claim. The core reasoning centered on Illinois negligence elements including duty and breach, statutory immunity under the Tort Immunity Act, and the sufficiency of pleadings under federal standards.

torts & liabilityprocedure

This case is a patent infringement action in which Lexion Medical sued Northgate Technologies, claiming that Northgate's Humi-Flow device infringed Lexion's U.S. Patent No. 5,411,474 for a method and apparatus to heat and humidify gas used in laparoscopic surgery. Following a jury verdict for Lexion that was vacated by the Federal Circuit and remanded with revised claim constructions, the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment on infringement of claim limitations 11(a) and 11(e). The court granted Lexion's motion and denied Northgate's, concluding that the accused device met the heating and humidifying means limitations and delivered gas within 2°C of the predetermined temperature under the Federal Circuit's constructions of those terms. The decision rested on the absence of any disputed factual issues regarding the device's operation matching the construed claims and on the patent's disclosure that temperature fluctuations outside the range were possible.

business & regulatoryprocedure

This case involves a motion by defendants Kenneth and Jean Neumann to withdraw an adversary proceeding from bankruptcy court to federal district court in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy of Neumann Homes, Inc. The Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors had filed claims seeking to recover alleged preferential and fraudulent transfers, including approximately $25 million in tax refunds tied to net operating loss carrybacks, along with related state-law claims such as unjust enrichment and breach of fiduciary duty. The Neumanns argued for withdrawal based on their Seventh Amendment jury trial rights and the need for significant interpretation of the Internal Revenue Code regarding Subchapter S/C corporate status and NOL rules. The court denied the motion, holding that the claims were core bankruptcy matters, that jury rights did not require withdrawal in this context, and that resolution would not demand substantial analysis of non-bankruptcy federal law beyond routine application.

business & regulatorytaxesprocedure

Lorinda Broberg, a former Illinois State Police employee, sued her former employer alleging that ISP discriminated against her on the basis of a perceived disability in violation of the ADA and Rehabilitation Act by requiring psychological evaluations and placing her on indefinite disability leave, that ISP discriminated against her on the basis of sex in violation of Title VII, and that ISP retaliated against her for filing internal and EEOC complaints. The court denied ISP's motion for summary judgment on the disability discrimination claim, finding genuine issues of material fact as to whether ISP regarded Broberg as disabled and whether its fitness-for-duty process was pretextual. The court granted summary judgment to ISP on the sex discrimination and retaliation claims because Broberg failed to establish a prima facie case under either the direct or indirect methods of proof, including by not identifying any similarly situated employees who were treated differently.

civil rightslabor & employment

The case involved a former employee, Nichols, who had signed confidentiality and non-solicitation agreements with Garelli Wong, an accounting and financial staffing firm later acquired by MPS. After leaving, Nichols allegedly accessed and used the company's confidential client and candidate database and solicited its clients, leading to claims for breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, and violation of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The court granted the defendant's motion to dismiss the CFAA claim because the complaint failed to allege the required element of "damage" to the computer system, even though loss allegations might have been curable. It then dismissed the remaining state-law claims for lack of supplemental jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1367 after the sole federal claim was eliminated.

business & regulatorycriminal lawprocedure

This case concerns a fee dispute between the Stearney law firm and the Clifford Law Offices arising from their joint representation of the Woods family in a tort action against Southwest Airlines and Boeing after a 2005 plane crash at Chicago Midway Airport. The Stearneys petitioned to adjudicate an attorneys' lien under a contingent-fee agreement that called for a one-third or 40% share of any recovery, later modified by a January 2006 agreement splitting fees 50-50, and the parties filed cross-motions for partial summary judgment on Count I plus a motion to dismiss Count II. The court granted the Clifford firm's summary-judgment motion in part and denied it in part, denied the Stearneys' cross-motion, and dismissed Count II. Its core reasoning applied Illinois Rule of Professional Conduct 1.5(g) requiring the client's written consent to any referral-based fee division, found that consent ineffective once the client had discharged the Stearneys, and held that the same rules govern fee disputes between former co-counsel as between lawyer and client.

proceduretorts & liability

This case involved an interpleader action filed by Caterpillar Inc. under ERISA to resolve competing claims to the proceeds of a deceased employee's retirement savings plan. The employee, Anthony Cole, died in 2005 along with his wife Velton in a homicide-suicide incident, leaving uncertainty about who survived whom; his children from a prior relationship and Velton's estate both claimed the benefits based on prior beneficiary forms. The court granted summary judgment to the children, awarding them equal shares of the account, and denied the estate's motion. It reasoned that Anthony's 1998 beneficiary form clearly designated the children as equal beneficiaries and would control even if the later 2002 form was invalid due to missing spousal consent and allocation details, while Velton did not qualify as a surviving spouse under the plan terms given the lack of evidence on the sequence of deaths.

business & regulatoryfamily lawproperty

Richard Estabrook, a former securities broker employed by Piper Jaffray, sued the company in state court for specific performance, breach of contract, and declaratory judgment after it revoked his unvested restricted stock awards upon his 2005 termination. Piper Jaffray removed the case to federal court and moved to compel arbitration, citing the arbitration provision in Estabrook's NASD Form U4 registration, which incorporated NASD rules requiring arbitration of disputes arising from employment or its termination. The court granted the motion and dismissed the case without prejudice, holding that the Federal Arbitration Act and applicable Delaware law created a presumption of arbitrability, that a written agreement to arbitrate existed and covered the claims, and that Estabrook had refused to arbitrate.

labor & employmentprocedurebusiness & regulatory

This case involved a patent dispute in which IP Innovation alleged that Lexmark and Dell infringed two patents (the '780 and '637 patents) related to methods and circuits for improving the visual quality of images on display devices, such as by reducing stair-step artifacts in diagonal lines without increasing resolution. Dell filed a counterclaim seeking declaratory judgments of invalidity and non-infringement. The court construed disputed claim terms from specified claims in both patents, prioritizing intrinsic evidence including the claim language, specification, and prosecution history under the standards from Markman and Phillips. For each term, the court adopted constructions based on the ordinary meaning to a person skilled in the art and rejected proposed additions or limitations not supported by the patent record. The opinion provides specific constructions for terms such as those describing image elements, display devices, and neighboring pixels.

business & regulatoryprocedure

This case involved former Cracker Barrel employee Hedrick Humphries, an African-American man, who sued his employer under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 claiming that his termination was motivated by racial discrimination and by retaliation for his complaints about discriminatory treatment of himself and another Black employee. The court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment on the § 1981 claim. Humphries had received multiple performance warnings and was fired after a store safe was found unlocked following his shift, which the employer cited as the reason for termination. The court found no direct evidence of discriminatory motive and determined that Humphries failed to show the employer's legitimate business reason was pretextual under the indirect method of proof, as temporal proximity to his complaints alone did not establish causation or pretext.

civil rightslabor & employment

This employment discrimination case involved plaintiff Humphries, who sued his former employer Cracker Barrel under Title VII and 42 U.S.C. § 1981 alleging race discrimination and retaliation after his termination. After receiving an EEOC right-to-sue notice, Humphries filed a complaint and multiple in forma pauperis (IFP) applications within the 90-day deadline, but the court denied the IFP petitions, and he paid the filing fee 195 days late. The court granted the defendant's motion to dismiss the Title VII claims with prejudice, holding that under local rules and Seventh Circuit precedent, a complaint is not deemed filed until the fee is paid following IFP denial, and the delays after each denial exceeded the statute of limitations without any applicable tolling or reasonableness exception. The core reasoning emphasized that the 90-day limit is strict to ensure timely resolution of such claims, and Humphries' repeated late resubmissions did not satisfy it.

labor & employmentcivil rightsprocedure

This case involves a patent infringement suit brought by IP Innovation against Lexmark, alleging that Lexmark's printers infringed U.S. Patent No. 5,424,780, which originated from a 1989 application later continued in 1993. Lexmark moved for summary judgment, arguing that the patent's effective filing date was 1993, making its 1991 printer sales prior art that invalidated the patent under the on-sale bar of 35 U.S.C. § 102(b). The court denied the motion, finding that Lexmark failed to properly present undisputed facts under local rules and that the record left genuine issues of material fact about whether the 1993 filing was a valid continuation of the original application, including possible explanations for how printer-specific language was added during prosecution. Because these disputes could not be resolved on summary judgment, the court could not determine the patent's validity or effective date.

propertyprocedure

This case involves a patent infringement lawsuit filed by IP Innovation LLC and Technology Licensing Corp. against several printer manufacturers, including Lexmark, in the Northern District of Illinois. Lexmark moved to transfer the case to the Eastern District of Kentucky under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a) for convenience. The court denied the motion, reasoning that transfer motions are evaluated based on the case as originally filed, when additional defendants who lacked ties to Kentucky were still parties, making venue improper there. Additionally, even considering convenience factors, Lexmark failed to show that Kentucky was clearly more convenient, as the plaintiffs' forum choice and other factors did not strongly favor transfer.

procedurebusiness & regulatory

The case involved a dispute between Cook Inc. and Boston Scientific Corp. over whether Cook breached an exclusive licensing agreement with Angiotech and Boston by entering into multiple agreements with Advanced Cardiovascular Systems (ACS) regarding paclitaxel-coated stents. The court granted Boston's motion for summary judgment and denied Cook's, holding that Cook had unlawfully assigned its responsibilities under the license. The core reasoning was that the agreements effectively transferred Cook's obligations to obtain regulatory approvals and other rights to ACS without the required consent, exceeding the scope of the coexclusive license granted in the Angiotech Agreement.

business & regulatory

This case concerns the validity and alleged infringement of U.S. Patent No. 4,721,723, which covers crystalline paroxetine hydrochloride hemihydrate, a form of the antidepressant paroxetine developed from earlier work by Ferrosan and licensed to SmithKline. Plaintiffs moved for summary judgment upholding the patent, while defendants challenged its validity under sections of 35 U.S.C. § 102 and sought a ruling of noninfringement for their proposed generic product. The court granted plaintiffs summary judgment on validity under §§ 102(b), (f), and (g), finding the hemihydrate was not anticipated by prior art or other bars, but denied summary judgment on remaining invalidity claims under §§ 102(b) and 112 and on noninfringement because material factual disputes existed over whether defendants' product contained a detectable amount of the patented crystalline form.

business & regulatoryhealthcareproperty