This case involved class action claims by Cenco security holders alleging that the company and others falsified financial statements through inventory manipulation and altered sales figures from 1970 to 1975, in violation of federal securities laws and common law. The opinion addresses a joint petition for attorneys' fees and expenses following a $3.5 million settlement with the company's auditors, Seidman & Seidman. The court applied the lodestar method, considering factors including the contingent nature of the action, quality of services, and benefits to the class, and awarded fees with multipliers of 4 for the lead firm and 2 for the others, plus paralegal costs and expenses, noting the total fees were under 17% of the recovery.
This case originated from a 1966 complaint against the Chicago Housing Authority alleging operation of a racially discriminatory public housing system. After years of litigation resulting in findings of liability against CHA, plaintiffs sought attorneys' fees under the Civil Rights Attorneys’ Fees Act of 1976 for work performed by lead counsel. The court granted the motion, awarding $375,375, determining that the case remained pending at the time the Act took effect due to ongoing remedial proceedings, thus allowing fees under the statute.
This case involved a challenge by displaced residents and a community organization to the City of Chicago's use of federal Community Development Block Grant funds for a commercial redevelopment project, seeking to enjoin the expenditure and obtain a declaratory judgment against HUD's approval. Plaintiffs argued that the City's relocation plans failed to ensure a reasonable opportunity for them to remain in the immediate neighborhood, violating the Housing and Community Development Act, the Uniform Relocation Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act, and that HUD's approval was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act. The court granted summary judgment to the defendants, holding that the relevant statutes do not require comparable replacement housing to be located in the immediate neighborhood and that the City's application otherwise satisfied statutory requirements. The decision rested on the conclusion that HUD's approval of the plans, which provided assurances of comparable dwellings without the neighborhood restriction, was not arbitrary or capricious.
In Black v. Brown, a prisoner at Illinois State Penitentiary sued prison officials under § 1983, alleging that he was placed in punitive isolation and then long-term segregation without timely notice of charges or an opportunity to be heard after an incident in which he ran in the yard in response to a shouted command. After remand from the Seventh Circuit, the district court awarded the plaintiff $5,000 in damages for violations of procedural due process and excessive punishment. The court found that the plaintiff had been held in isolation for 12 days before learning of the charges against him and in segregation for 18 months with no hearing, and that this combined punishment was disproportionate to the minor offense of running in the yard.
This case arose from the discharge of raw sewage by the City and Sanitary District of Hammond, Indiana, into Lake Michigan, which allegedly polluted Chicago beaches and prompted multiple lawsuits by Illinois plaintiffs. The complaints asserted claims under federal common law of nuisance as well as Illinois common and statutory law for nuisance and trespass. Following the Supreme Court's decision in City of Milwaukee v. Illinois, the court dismissed the federal common law counts but denied the defendants' motions to dismiss the state-law claims. It held that Illinois law could apply to the out-of-state pollution under principles of choice of law and that the federal court had jurisdiction to adjudicate those claims, even across state lines.
This case originated in 1966 as a class action by thousands of Black public housing tenants and applicants against the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) and later the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), alleging violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause through racially discriminatory site selection and tenant assignment practices that concentrated public housing in Black neighborhoods. The court previously found CHA and HUD liable for these unconstitutional actions and issued multiple orders and supplemental decrees requiring construction of public housing in predominantly white areas to remedy segregation patterns, though implementation was delayed by years of appeals and litigation. In this opinion, the court addresses a proposed consent decree negotiated between the plaintiffs and HUD, which outlines a plan to deliver relief including specific housing sites in designated census tracts across the Chicago metropolitan area. The decision incorporates prior findings of liability and authorizes the decree's implementation to fulfill the plaintiffs' entitlement to effective remedial measures.