Chicago Business Litigation Lawyer Blog
Federal judges to decide where to consolidate lawsuits accusing Google of Wi-Fi snooping
REBECCA BOONE
Associated Press Writer
Peter Lubin Named to Super Lawyers;
Only 5% of Illinois Lawyers Receive This Distinction
The Wall Street Journal Reports: Intel Wins Ruling In Antitrust Class Action
Chicago Federal Judge Denies Injunction in Insurance Brokerage Restrictive Covenant Case
Our Chicago noncompete agreement lawyers were interested to read about a significant ruling in a covenant not to compete case. According to insurance industry journal National Underwriter Property & Casualty, a federal district judge for the Northern District of Illinois ruled in June that former employees of CRC Insurance Services Inc. may continue in their new jobs at Ryan Specialty Group Inc. while the courts hear the two companies’ legal dispute. The companies, both of which are specialty insurance brokers, are fighting over employees who left CRC in May to move to Ryan’s R-T Specialty of Illinois, a new company founded by Pat Ryan, the CEO of Aon Corporation and a Chicago philanthropist. The judge’s preliminary ruling means the employees can stay in their jobs at least until the lawsuit by CRC has been decided.
According to the article, the exodus started when Tim Turner resigned as co-president of CRC in January. In February, Ryan announced that it was starting RTS with Turner in the role of managing director. He was joined by a former outside counsel to CRC, Ed McCormack. CRC’s complaint alleges that McCormack solicited CRC employees to join RTS. In all, 120 employees made that switch, including 39 who had signed covenants not to compete. After a large group of resignations on May 4, CRC sued RTS to enforce employees’ agreements not to compete, not to solicit former colleagues or customers for two years, and not to disclose certain company information. RTS told the court it is taking steps to obey the confidentiality agreements, but disagrees with CRC about the non-compete agreement and the scope of the non-solicitation agreement.
In the ruling, the Chicago federal court declined to grant a preliminary injunction to CRC, which would have stopped all 120 employees from working at RTS or any other competitor. In the ruling, the court said allowing the employees to continue working at RTS will harm CRC, but declining to allow them to keep working would put RTS out of business and harm the livelihoods of the employees. Crain’s Chicago Business noted that CRC has also filed suit in Alabama and California.
This ruling is a major victory for RTS and its new employees. RTS is backed by the wealth of Pat Ryan, but it can’t do business if none of its new employees are allowed to work for it. As the judge noted in the article, even CRC agreed that RTS would not survive without the 120 employees at issue — 81 of whom do not have a non-compete agreement. By contrast, the judge noted that CRC would not go out of business for lack of this preliminary injunction. Rulings like this can be appealed, of course, and our Illinois emergency business litigation attorneys may be able to offer other options to clients in CRC’s situation. In fact, as a CRC spokesman said in the article, this is likely to be just the first step in a long dispute between the two companies.
NPR Reports: Madoff Investors Who Gained May Face Lawsuits
NPR reports:
Investors who entrusted their money to Bernard Madoff and actually made money may be in for some unwelcome news. According to the Wall Street Journal, the man in charge of recovering money for Madoff’s victims is preparing to file a wave of new lawsuits aimed at wresting money away from investors who withdrew money from their Madoff accounts and made a profit.
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NPR Reports Trial-Bound Companies Learn Lesson: Save E-Mail
NPR reports:
A number of recent high-profile lawsuits suggest that companies must preserve important email documents on their computer systems, or risk major court sanctions. Increasingly, companies are turning to outside vendors to ensure they don’t accidentally destroy electronic documents that could come up in a lawsuit
Lawsuits Can Require Businesses to Keep Massive Amounts of Emails and Computer Stored Records
NPR reported a few years ago:
New rules take effect that help companies decide how many e-mails and other digital items they have to keep in case someone sues them and demands the documents be brought to court. Even small companies can generate millions of digital documents in a very short time, and systems for managing them can be expensive.
New Law Protects Consumers From Non-Bank Lenders
Our Oak Brook, Illinois consumer rights private law firm handles individual and class action predatory lending, unfair debt collection, lemon law and other consumer fraud cases that government agencies and public interest law firms such as the Illinois Attorney General may not pursue. Class action lawsuits our law firm has been involved in or spear-headed have led to substantial awards totalling over a million dollars to organizations including the National Association of Consumer Advocates, the National Consumer Law Center, and local law school consumer programs. The Chicago consumer lawyers at Lubin Austermuehle are proud of our achievements in assisting national and local consumer rights organizations obtain the funds needed to ensure that consumers are protected and informed of their rights. By standing up to consumer fraud and consumer rip-offs, and in the right case filing consumer protection lawsuits and class-actions you too can help ensure that other consumers’ rights are protected from consumer rip-offs and unscrupulous or dishonest practices.
Our Wheaton and Evanston consumer lawyersrovide assistance in fair debt collection, consumer fraud and consumer rights cases including in Illinois and throughout the country. You can click here to see a description of the some of the many individual and class-action consumer cases we have handled. A video of our lawsuit which helped ensure more fan friendly security at Wrigley Field can be found here. You can contact one of our Chicago consumer protection lawyers can assist in consumer fraud, consumer rip-off, lemon law, unfair debt collection, predatory lending, wage claims, unpaid overtime and other consumer, or consumer class action cases by filling out the contact form at the side of this blog or by clicking here.