Tunu Shakari sought judicial review of the Social Security Commissioner's denial of her application for widow's insurance benefits after her conviction for voluntary manslaughter in the death of her husband. The court denied her motion for summary judgment, affirmed the Commissioner's decision, and dismissed the case with prejudice. The ALJ had found her ineligible under the regulation barring benefits for anyone convicted of a felony or act in the nature of a felony of intentionally causing the insured's death. The core reasoning was that under Illinois law a pardon does not obliterate the conviction or its legal effects unless the pardon explicitly states innocence or authorizes expungement, neither of which occurred here.
In Green v. Scurto Cement Construction, Ltd., African-American union members Ronald Green Sr. and Donald Green sued Operative Plasterers & Cement Masons International Association, Local 11, Area 161 under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, alleging racial discrimination in the union's job referral system that assigned them shorter, lower-paying work and retaliation for filing grievances with the union, EEOC, Illinois Department of Human Rights, and NLRB. After earlier dismissal of Title VII claims and time-barred Section 1981 claims, the union moved to dismiss the amended complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) for insufficient pleading of intentional discrimination, interference with contract rights, and retaliation. The court denied the motion, holding that the amended complaint provided sufficient factual allegations to state plausible claims under the Twombly/Iqbal pleading standards, gave fair notice of the claims, and complied with the prior order limiting the timeframe of allegations.
In this case, Terry Jones filed a pro se motion seeking to challenge and correct what he claimed was an illegal federal sentence for violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) as a felon in possession of a firearm, arguing that letters from Illinois restoring certain civil rights after his prior state convictions meant those convictions should not count under 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20). The court reviewed the indictment, plea agreement, sentencing documents, and appeal history and found that Jones had known about the restoration letters before his guilty plea but never raised the issue with counsel, in the presentence report, at sentencing, or on appeal. The court held that the motion, however characterized, was untimely under the one-year statute of limitations for a potential 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion and could not qualify for relief under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) because the judgment was not void and Jones had failed to act promptly even after the Buchmeier decision. Jones' motion was therefore denied.
Ramon Pickens sued parole officer Robert Moore under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that Moore violated his Fourteenth Amendment due process rights by submitting a false parole violation report that caused Pickens to be wrongfully held for nine additional months after his scheduled release. Moore filed a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). The court denied the motion, applying the Twombly-Iqbal plausibility standard to the well-pleaded facts and concluding that Heck v. Humphrey does not bar the claim because Pickens was no longer incarcerated and lacked access to habeas relief.
The case concerns a fire protection district's attempt to enter the private alarm monitoring business by enacting regulations that effectively required customers to use its services, which private security companies challenged as exceeding the district's statutory authority under Illinois law. After granting partial summary judgment and issuing a permanent injunction barring the district's actions, the court addressed the district's motion to stay enforcement of that injunction pending appeal. The court denied the stay, finding that the district had not made the required strong showing of likely success on the merits, that any harm to the district was self-inflicted and outweighed by harm to the alarm companies, and that the public interest favored maintaining the injunction to preserve the status quo before the district's unauthorized expansion. The analysis applied the four-factor test from Hilton v. Braunskill, emphasizing that injunctive relief differs from money judgments by requiring an affirmative showing for a stay.
This case involved a patent infringement dispute in which Midtronics, Inc. alleged that defendants Aurora Performance Products LLC (d/b/a Argus Analyzers) and BPPower Inc. infringed U.S. Patent No. 5,821,756 through the sale and importation of certain battery tester products. After a bench trial, the court ruled entirely in Midtronics' favor, finding that the accused products infringed Claims 1-4 of the patent, that the infringement was willful, and that the patent was valid because the defendants failed to prove obviousness based on prior art or secondary considerations. The court further determined that the case was exceptional, entitling Midtronics to a permanent injunction as well as reasonable attorney fees and expenses under 35 U.S.C. §§ 283 and 285. The decision rested on detailed factual findings regarding claim limitations, prior art references, and the defendants' litigation conduct, which the court adopted from the prevailing party's submissions.
