This case concerns a licensing agreement under which Geneva International Corporation received the exclusive right to use the PETROF trademark in the United States through December 31, 2012, in exchange for financial support provided to the Czech piano manufacturer Petrof, Spol, S.R.O. After earlier disputes, the parties signed the license along with settlement and other agreements; defendant later notified plaintiff of its intent to terminate the related distributorship contract and to sell PETROF pianos in the United States through its own subsidiary. Plaintiff renewed its motion for summary judgment on its claim of anticipatory breach of the license. The court entered a Rule 56(d) order establishing defendant's liability, concluding that the license contained no termination provision before its end date and that the parties did not intend the withdrawal clause from the distributorship contract to apply to the license.
The case involved a class of former Allstate employee-agents who sued the company and its Agent Transition Severance Plan, alleging violations of ERISA and breach of contract arising from new operational standards imposed on neighborhood office agents (NOAs) under a 1998 IRS closing agreement. These standards included restrictions on expenses, full-time work requirements, office hours, and management practices, which plaintiffs claimed were designed to force conversions to independent contractor Exclusive Agency status. Allstate moved for summary judgment. The court granted the motion, finding insufficient evidence that the changes were a pretext to pressure agents or that they breached contractual obligations or ERISA duties, as many agents could comply, the standards applied uniformly, and no intent to force resignations was shown.
In Zboralski v. Monahan, plaintiff Geneva Zboralski sued several employees of an Illinois treatment and detention facility in their individual capacities, claiming that pat-down searches she underwent while visiting her civilly committed husband in 2005 violated her Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights and constituted invasion of privacy as well as assault and battery. The defendants moved for summary judgment and to strike portions of the plaintiff's evidence. The court granted the motion to strike certain hearsay statements and unsupported characterizations, granted summary judgment to defendants Monahan and Budz as well as on the invasion of privacy claim, denied summary judgment as to defendant Martin because factual disputes existed over whether her pat-down involved intentional touching of the plaintiff's vaginal area that could constitute willful or wanton conduct, and continued the motion as to the remaining defendants.
The case involved plaintiff Thomas Santora suing Starwood and related entities for negligence after he tripped and fell on a carpet runner at the Hotel Danieli-Venice in Italy in 2004. After initially suing Starwood and later adding Sheraton LLC (formerly ITT Sheraton) and Sheraton International as defendants based on corporate structure information, those two entities moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. The court granted the motions, holding that the plaintiff failed to make a prima facie showing of jurisdiction under Illinois' long-arm statute and the Fourteenth Amendment. The defendants' licensing of franchises in Illinois did not constitute systematic and continuous contacts sufficient to satisfy due process, and exercising jurisdiction would offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.
The case involves a copyright infringement suit by plaintiff Rudnicki against WPNA 1490 AM for unauthorized use of his radio broadcasts from 2004 and 2006. The plaintiff sought to prevent the defendants from arguing that his works were not registered, claiming that his September 5, 2006 application registered the relevant broadcasts. The court denied the motion in limine, reasoning that for foreign-originated works seeking statutory damages, proper registration under 17 U.S.C. § 408 requires depositing complete copies of each work, not just representative samples, so only the six submitted broadcasts were registered. The court also noted that the plaintiff provided no evidence identifying those six broadcasts or special leave from the Register of Copyrights.
Ace Rent-A-Car sued its insurers Empire and National for a declaration that they owed duties to defend and indemnify it against a state-court class action alleging that Ace and a travel agency sent unsolicited fax advertisements in violation of the TCPA as well as claims for conversion and Illinois consumer fraud. The parties cross-moved for summary judgment on the insurance policies' advertising-injury and property-damage coverage provisions. The court denied Ace's motion and granted the insurers' motions, holding that the policies did not cover the underlying claims because the faxes were not an "advertising injury" that violated privacy rights and did not constitute an "occurrence" or "accident," with an additional ruling that National was relieved of any duty due to Ace's multi-year delay in providing notice.