Suzanne B. Conlon

The case involved Sírvante Brown, a student with a learning disability whose education was governed by an IEP, who challenged the Chicago Public Schools' implementation of the IEP after receiving poor grades and after a due process hearing that provided only partial relief in the form of tutoring. Brown sued under the IDEA (dismissed as untimely filed more than 120 days after the hearing), § 1983, and the ADA, alleging denial of a free appropriate public education. The court addressed the school board's summary judgment motion on the § 1983 and ADA claims, analyzing whether § 1983 could remedy statutory IDEA violations in light of Supreme Court precedent in Smith v. Robinson and congressional amendments in 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i), as well as circuit splits on the issue, and whether any ADA violation occurred from IEP noncompliance. The opinion concludes that the § 1983 claim is unavailable for IDEA violations under the comprehensive remedial scheme and that the ADA claim fails for lack of evidence of discrimination.

civil rightsprocedure

In this qui tam action, relator Sean Mason, a former Medline employee, alleged that the medical supply company violated the False Claims Act by providing kickbacks and bribes to healthcare providers participating in Medicare and Medicaid; these providers then submitted cost reports falsely certifying compliance with anti-kickback laws, resulting in improper government payments. Medline moved to dismiss the second amended complaint under Rules 9(b) and 12(b)(6), arguing insufficient particularity and failure to plead the required intent that the government rely on the false statements. The court denied the motion, holding that the allegations adequately linked the kickbacks to specific false claims and statements, satisfied the heightened pleading standards, and met the FCA's intent requirements under Allison Engine by showing that inducing government payment was the natural consequence of the conduct.

healthcarebusiness & regulatorycriminal law

The case involved plaintiffs suing the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority and its officials for alleged violations of procedural due process under federal law, the Illinois Toll Highway Act, and breach of contract, stemming from difficulties in contesting erroneous toll violation notices due to system errors and inadequate contact methods. The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss, finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing under Article III because they failed to allege a cognizable injury in fact or a probable threat of future injury. Specifically, the inconvenience experienced by the plaintiffs did not constitute a legally sufficient harm, and any potential future violations were deemed speculative.

civil rightsprocedure

In Oshana v. Coca-Cola Co., the plaintiff sued Coca-Cola alleging unjust enrichment and violations of the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act based on nondisclosure of saccharin in fountain diet Coke, seeking damages and disgorgement on behalf of herself and a putative class. After the court denied class certification, limited the claims, and the case was removed to federal court, Coca-Cola made a Rule 68 offer of judgment for $650 plus fees and costs, which Oshana accepted, resulting in a judgment that explicitly disclaimed any admission of liability. Oshana then moved for over $1.1 million in attorneys' fees and expenses, but the magistrate judge recommended denial, and the district court adopted that recommendation in full. The court reasoned that although Oshana was technically a prevailing party, her minimal individual recovery rendered any fee award unwarranted, and the requested amount was disproportionate to the result obtained.

business & regulatoryprocedure

This case involves a patent infringement lawsuit brought by Goss International Americas, Inc. against K & M Newspaper Services, Inc. under 35 U.S.C. § 271, with K & M filing counterclaims seeking declaratory judgments of non-infringement and invalidity. The dispute centers on U.S. Patent No. 6,082,724, which covers a variable-speed inserter machine for placing advertising sheets into newspapers, consisting of article feeders and a conveyor assembly controlled by a main controller to synchronize speeds and reduce misfeeds. The court conducted claim construction for eleven disputed terms, primarily means-plus-function elements under 35 U.S.C. § 112, ¶ 6, relying on the patent specification, intrinsic evidence, and Federal Circuit precedents like Phillips v. AWH Corp. The court construed the 'article feeder means' and 'control means' elements consistent with Goss's proposals, the 'means for providing signals' element consistent with K & M's proposal, and adopted the parties' agreed constructions for all undisputed terms.

business & regulatoryprocedure

This case involves a fire that destroyed a rail bridge in Riverdale, Illinois, during reconstruction work under a contract between Metra (the commuter railroad) and Kiewit (the contractor). Metra sued Kiewit on claims including negligence, breach of contract, indemnification, strict liability, and failure to procure insurance, while Kiewit counterclaimed for breach of contract, quantum meruit, and estoppel. On summary judgment, the court granted Metra's motion on Kiewit's breach of contract counterclaim but denied it on the quantum meruit and estoppel counts, and granted Kiewit's motion on Metra's strict liability claim but denied it on the breach of contract count. The core reasoning relied on the contract's allocation of risk of loss to Kiewit prior to final acceptance, and the determination under Illinois law that welding and torch cutting do not qualify as ultrahazardous activities supporting strict liability.

business & regulatoryproceduretorts & liability

In Perez-Garcia v. Village of Mundelein, the plaintiff alleged he was wrongly arrested and detained for nearly a month at the Lake County jail due to a mistaken identity with another individual who had an outstanding warrant, despite providing proof of his identity. He brought claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for civil rights violations, false imprisonment, and spoliation of evidence against Lake County, its sheriff, and others. The court granted Lake County's motion to dismiss all claims against it, reasoning that the county is not vicariously or directly liable for the policies and actions of the independently elected sheriff. However, the court denied the sheriff's motion to dismiss the § 1983 and spoliation claims, finding that the complaint sufficiently alleged the necessary elements for those causes of action.

civil rightscriminal lawproceduretorts & liability

This case involves a dispute between trustees of two ERISA health and welfare funds—the Masons fund and the Plasterers fund—over which plan is primarily responsible for paying health claims of participants who had overlapping coverage after switching bargaining representatives from one union to another in 2002-2003. Both plans contained coordination of benefits provisions asserting secondary status to the other, leading to a standoff on liability for the shared period. The court granted summary judgment to the Masons plaintiffs and declared the Plasterers fund primarily liable and the Masons fund secondarily liable. The reasoning centered on interpreting the plans' specific coordination clauses under ERISA § 502(a)(3), applying NAIC model regulations that reject pro-rata sharing when both plans claim to be secondary, and following precedents like PM Group Life and McGurl to determine the order of benefits based on the plans' language and circumstances of coverage.

labor & employmenthealthcare

The case concerned the U.S. government's action to revoke the citizenship of Joseph Wittje, an ethnic German from Romania who immigrated in 1950 and was naturalized in 1959, on the ground that he had concealed his service as a Waffen SS guard at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp from 1943 to 1945. The court granted the government's motion for summary judgment on Count I, holding that Wittje's visa was unlawfully procured under Section 13 of the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 because the Waffen SS appeared on the Inimical List of organizations hostile to the United States. Because he therefore had not been lawfully admitted for permanent residence, a statutory prerequisite under 8 U.S.C. § 1427(a), his naturalization was illegally procured and subject to revocation under 8 U.S.C. § 1451(a). The court set aside the naturalization order, canceled the certificate of naturalization, and declared the remaining counts moot.

immigration

In this diversity case, Travelers Casualty & Surety Co. sued three related Interclaim entities for breach of contract, quia timet, and constructive trust arising from an indemnity agreement tied to a $3 million Canadian-dollar surety bond that the Interclaim entities posted in Alberta, Canada, to support an injunction in litigation against a telemarketing fraud group. The defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2) for lack of personal jurisdiction. The court granted the motion, holding that it lacked both general and specific jurisdiction over the Irish and Bermudian corporations because the surety bond was negotiated and issued abroad for Canadian proceedings and the subsequent Illinois litigation had no sufficient nexus to the bond or the forum. The court also rejected quasi-in-rem jurisdiction for the same reason and noted that the claims arose from foreign transactions with no connection to Illinois.

procedurebusiness & regulatory

The case involved Enaam Arnaout, who pleaded guilty to racketeering fraud conspiracy for diverting funds from his charity Benevolence International Foundation to support militias in Bosnia and Chechnya rather than solely for humanitarian aid. In this sentencing opinion, the court addressed disputes over loss calculations and the application of a terrorism enhancement under the sentencing guidelines. The court determined specific loss amounts based on evidence of diverted funds, rejecting some additions like for hand warmers due to evidence they were intended for refugees. The court declined to apply the terrorism enhancement because the relevant guideline amendments were substantive and could not be applied retroactively without violating ex post facto principles, resulting in a guideline range of 97 to 121 months.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved federal criminal charges against Enaam Arnaout, CEO of Benevolence International Foundation, for racketeering and conspiring to provide material support to groups including al Qaeda and others engaged in violent activities abroad, in violation of statutes such as 18 U.S.C. §§ 1962, 956, and 2339A. Arnaout moved to dismiss key counts, arguing that the alleged aid recipients were lawful combatants whose actions were privileged under the Geneva Conventions and thus could not form the basis for conspiracy charges involving murder, kidnapping, or maiming. The court denied the motion, holding that the indictment's allegations must be accepted as true and supported a reasonable inference that the recipients were terrorists unprotected by the Conventions. The court further reasoned that Arnaout had not demonstrated the groups met the four criteria for lawful combatant status, such as a hierarchical structure, distinctive uniforms, open carrying of arms, and compliance with the laws of war.

criminal law

This case involved defendant Enaam Arnaout's motion to reassign a new criminal indictment charging racketeering, material support for violence, money laundering, and fraud to the judge who had dismissed an earlier perjury indictment against him and Benevolence International Foundation. The court denied the motion to transfer the case under local rules for direct assignment or related cases. The core reasoning was that the local criminal and civil rules on superseding indictments, re-filed dismissed cases, and relatedness did not apply because the charges differed, the parties were not identical, and the case was properly assigned randomly by the automated system.

criminal lawprocedure

Harry Aleman was tried and acquitted of a 1972 murder in a 1977 bench trial before a judge later shown to have accepted a bribe; he was retried and convicted in 1997 after the Illinois courts held that double jeopardy did not bar the second prosecution. Aleman then sought federal habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, raising claims including double jeopardy, judicial bias on appeal, and various trial errors. The district court denied the petition, concluding that the bribery rendered the first trial a sham that did not implicate double-jeopardy protections and that the remaining claims lacked merit under the applicable standards of review.

criminal lawprocedure

In this bankruptcy appeal, Griffin Trading Company, a commodities broker with operations in the US and England, filed for Chapter 7 protection in 1998. English creditors and their liquidators missed the May 1999 deadline for filing formal proofs of claim in the US proceeding and later sought to have certain submissions to the trustee treated as informal proofs of claim that could be amended. The bankruptcy court denied the motions after an evidentiary hearing, finding the submissions insufficient because they were not filed with the court, did not clearly express an intent to hold the estate liable in the US case, and did not establish an agency relationship allowing the liquidators to act for the creditors; it also rejected equitable arguments for excusing the deadline. The district court affirmed, holding that the bankruptcy court's factual findings were not clearly erroneous and that its legal conclusions correctly applied the Bankruptcy Code and Rule 3002(c), which require timely filing and limit equitable relief. The court approved a settlement barring the untimely claims.

business & regulatoryprocedure

In Hosty v. Governors State University, student editors of the university newspaper Innovator sued the university, its board, and various officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that defendants violated their First Amendment rights through prior restraints, including halting publication, requiring administrative approval for future issues, suspending the newspaper's budget, and interfering with operations such as mail and access to facilities. The district court granted the motion to dismiss in part, dismissing all claims against Governors State University and its Board of Trustees, as well as claims against individual defendants in their official capacities for retrospective relief, on Eleventh Amendment grounds because these entities and officials are arms of the state. The court denied dismissal as to the individual defendants in their personal capacities, finding that the complaint's allegations of unjustified interference with the student newspaper's publication and funding sufficiently stated a First Amendment claim, as student press enjoys editorial discretion protections similar to the commercial press, subject only to narrow justifications for maintaining order. Claims for equitable relief against officials in their official capacities were allowed to proceed, while the request for injunctive relief in Count I was stricken as duplicative.

free speechcivil rightsprocedure

Carolyn Bottoms sued the Illinois Department of Human Services and Chicago-Read Mental Health Center under Title VII, claiming race discrimination and retaliation based on a denied flex-time request, a transfer to a new department, workplace conditions like an unclean office, conflicts with her supervisor, denial of a promotion, and her eventual termination for refusing a fitness-for-duty evaluation following insubordinate conduct. The court granted summary judgment to the defendants. It determined that Bottoms did not present evidence showing the employer's stated reasons, such as her insubordination disqualifying her from promotion, were pretextual, that most incidents did not amount to adverse job actions, and that there was no causal connection between her EEOC charge and the denial of the promotion.

civil rightslabor & employment

This case involved the NLRB, through petitioner Kinney, seeking a temporary injunction under Section 10(j) of the NLRA to halt an ongoing Illinois state court lawsuit by Federal Security and its principals against 17 former employees. The state suit alleged conspiracy, malicious prosecution, and related claims arising from the employees' testimony and affidavits in a prior NLRB unfair labor practice proceeding. The district court denied the petition for injunctive relief. It held that jurisdiction existed but that the NLRB had not shown a likelihood of success on the merits, because respondents presented some evidence that the state claims raised genuine issues of material fact; the NLRB also failed to prove by a preponderance that the non-defaulted employees lacked an adequate remedy at law or that irreparable harm to the NLRB's remedial authority outweighed other factors.

labor & employmentproceduretorts & liability

In Moore v. Henderson, plaintiff Lynda Moore, an African-American temporary employee at the United States Postal Service, sued her employer under Title VII for race discrimination in the terms and conditions of her employment and for retaliation after she threatened to file an EEO complaint. The postal service moved for summary judgment, citing undisputed facts that Moore was terminated for insubordination, failure to follow instructions, and disruptive conduct following a workplace disagreement, with the decision concurred in by an African-American acting manager who witnessed the events. Although Moore established prima facie cases for both claims, the court found she presented no evidence that the postal service's legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons were pretextual or that the decision-maker did not honestly believe the stated grounds for termination. The court therefore granted summary judgment to the defendant on all claims.

civil rightslabor & employment

In Abrams v. Walker, plaintiff Martin Abrams, an attorney, sued Illinois state trooper Kent Walker under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging malicious prosecution and First Amendment violations after Walker arrested him during a traffic stop of Abrams' client. The court granted Walker's motion for summary judgment. The undisputed facts showed that Abrams refused multiple orders to return to his car, failed to produce his license and insurance, grabbed a knife from his vehicle, and resisted being handcuffed, providing probable cause for charges of obstructing a peace officer and resisting arrest. Because probable cause existed, the claims for malicious prosecution and First Amendment retaliation could not succeed, as the arrest stemmed from Abrams' actions rather than his speech.

civil rightsfree speechcriminal lawprocedure