This case concerns disputes among the owners and officers of Access2Go, Inc., a telecommunications company, regarding the monitoring of plaintiff Shefts' electronic communications through company computers, email systems, and Blackberries after concerns arose about potential workplace misconduct. The court considered plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on claims against defendants Petrakis and Huffman, along with related motions to strike certain allegations, emails, and privileged communications from the pleadings. The court denied summary judgment, concluding there were genuine issues of material fact as to whether the monitoring complied with the employee manual's authorization requirements and whether plaintiff had a reasonable expectation of privacy. It granted motions to strike new arguments and immaterial or privileged paragraphs from the complaint but denied a request to stay proceedings.
The case concerned Hartford Casualty Insurance Company's motion for summary judgment in its action seeking a declaratory judgment on whether a professional liability policy covered malpractice claims against a law firm and its attorneys. The policy specified a retroactive date of December 21, 2006, but the underlying claims involved alleged errors predating that point, and the insured parties asserted that an agent had misrepresented the scope of coverage. The court granted the motion, holding that no genuine issue of material fact existed because the policy language plainly limited coverage to acts after the retroactive date and any misunderstanding about its legal effect was a mistake of law that did not support reformation of the contract.
The case involves plaintiff David L. Scott appealing the Social Security Administration's denial of his applications for disability insurance benefits and supplemental security income under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g), based on physical and mental impairments that he claimed prevented substantial gainful activity. The court applied the five-step sequential evaluation process to assess disability, reviewing whether the ALJ's findings on the severity of impairments, residual functional capacity, ability to perform past work, and other available jobs were supported by substantial evidence. The court denied the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment and granted the defendant's motion for summary affirmance, concluding that the ALJ properly weighed medical evidence, considered the listings for mental impairments, and made credibility determinations that had support in the record without being patently wrong. The review was limited to checking for substantial evidence rather than reweighing facts or substituting judgment for that of the ALJ.
The case concerned Eddie Hardwick's claims against Sunbelt Rentals, Inc. and the International Union of Operating Engineers Local No. 965 after the closure of Sunbelt's Decatur, Illinois facility, where Hardwick had worked as shop foreman. Hardwick alleged that Sunbelt breached the collective bargaining agreement's Job Security provision (Article 19) by failing to offer him a transfer to new facilities in Springfield or Champaign with backpay, and that the Union breached its duty of fair representation by mishandling the grievance, sharing negative information about him, and settling without pursuing full arbitration or reinstatement. The court granted summary judgment to both defendants and denied Hardwick's motion for partial summary judgment. It found no genuine issues of material fact, concluding that Sunbelt's transfer offers complied with the CBA's geographic limits and that the Union's actions were reasonable, not arbitrary or in bad faith, and lacked any causal link to proven injury.
The case involves the Village of DePue suing Viacom and related defendants over environmental contamination at a former zinc smelting and fertilizer plant site, seeking relief through common law claims of nuisance and trespass after prior ordinance-based suits were dismissed. The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint. The core reasoning was that the claims were barred by Illinois statutes of limitations, as the village had known or reasonably should have known about the contamination and property damage for many years based on EPA and IEPA investigations, fact sheets, and a 1995 consent order requiring phased remediation, with no basis to apply a later discovery date or tolling. The court also noted the ongoing state-supervised cleanup process under the consent order and federal law.
This case arose from a 2007 police standoff in which Brian Pitzer, who was suicidal and armed with a shotgun, was fatally shot by an officer after being tasered during an attempt to disarm him; his wife sued multiple local governments and officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging Fourth Amendment violations, plus state-law battery and indemnification claims. The court denied the motions to dismiss filed by the East Peoria and Peoria County defendants but granted those filed by the Tazewell County and Pekin defendants. It held that the complaint plausibly alleged recoverable damages under Seventh Circuit precedent on wrongful-death-type losses, that certain officers’ actions could support liability, and that other officers’ entry into the home lacked any causal link to the shooting so failed to state a claim. The decision applied the Twombly/Iqbal plausibility standard and struck certain non-recoverable damage allegations.