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Sarah Palin’s libel lawsuit against The New York Times was already unusual in that it made it all the way to trial, whereas most libel lawsuits settle outside of court. The lawsuit recently became even more noteworthy when the defense attorneys asked the court to rule in their favor, even if the jury ruled in Palin’s favor, and Judge Rakoff said he would. The decision effectively nullified the jury’s decision before the jury had a chance to reach a decision.

The jury did rule in favor of The New York Times, but there is no longer any way to tell whether their decision was influenced by the judge expressing his willingness to overrule their decision if they ruled in Palin’s favor. The judge’s announcement certainly put the jury in an awkward position, since they were instructed to stay away from news about the case to avoid swaying their decision, but they were most likely able to read reports of the judge’s decision prior to making their own.

Nevertheless, Judge Rakoff’s ruling is not surprising. He had dismissed the case back in 2017, but in 2019 an appellate court reversed his decision and sent the case back to his court.

Palin and her legal team viewed this lawsuit as an opportunity to weaken the protections the First Amendment extends to news outlets so they can report without fear of a lawsuit like this one making it to trial. The lawsuit is one of many filed by right-wing figureheads against various news outlets in an attempt to silence those outlets. Continue reading ›

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Arbitration has been a hot topic in legal circles and court opinions over the last decade. The U.S. Supreme Court and Federal Appeals courts have issued a number of high-profile decisions addressing issues of the enforceability of arbitration agreements, who gets to decide the threshold issue of arbitrability, and whether class claims can be decided in arbitration. Proponents of arbitration argue that it is quicker and less expensive than traditional litigation and provides greater confidentiality than the public court record. Opponents argue that it provides fewer avenues for discovery and allows unscrupulous defendants to shield their unsavory conduct or practices from the public eye.

Regardless of which side of the argument you fall on, the undeniable truth is that arbitration agreements are ubiquitous. Consumers find them in everything from cellphone contracts to gym membership agreements and everything in between. Many employers include them in employment contracts requiring employees to arbitrate claims of discrimination or harassment. And nearly all car dealerships include them in their sales contracts. In short, arbitration agreements are impossible to escape in modern life.

One customer of Hyline Auto Sales, a used car dealer, found this out the hard way. In April 2019, the plaintiff, Jason Taylor, purchased a vehicle from Hyline. Included in his sales contract was an agreement to submit disputes for arbitration by the Better Business Bureau (BBB).

Only weeks after his purchase, Taylor filed an arbitration demand with the BBB. After no response from the BBB for a week, Taylor wrote the BBB asking for a hearing date. He requested a hearing again on May 1, 2019. On May 27, 2019, Taylor again wrote the BBB and asked for the appointment of an arbitrator. Over the following several months, Taylor contacted the BBB dozens of times requesting the appointment of an arbitrator and to set an arbitration date, without success. Continue reading ›

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Former Alaska Governor and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s much-anticipated defamation trial against the New York Times was set to begin in federal court, but was rescheduled at the last minute after she tested positive for Covid-19 a day before jury selection was slated to begin. Defamation and First Amendment attorneys and legal scholars around the country have been keenly following the litigation as it could test key First Amendment protections for media. The trial has been rescheduled for February 3.

After learning of Palin’s positive COVID-19 test, the judge presiding over the case prepared ready to move forward with the trial, with Palin’s consent, and offered to allow her to testify via videoconference. Palin’s lawyers objected, however, and argued that she wanted to be present for jury selection and to provide her testimony live during trial.

The former governor sued the Times in 2017 over an editorial that incorrectly linked the 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona that left six people dead, including a federal judge, and gravely wounded others including Arizona Representative Gabby Giffords to a map showing certain electoral districts in crosshairs that was circulated by Palin’s political action committee. The Times later corrected the op-ed to remove any suggestion that Palin incited the shooting and apologized for the error. After Palin filed the case in federal court, the judge initially dismissed the case, but it was revived on appeal. Continue reading ›

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Recently the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued a much-anticipated decision in Cothron v. White Castle, concerning whether claims asserted under Sections 15(b) and 15(d) of the Illinois Biometric Information Protection Act (“BIPA”) accrue only once upon the initial collection or disclosure of biometric information or whether a new claim accrues each time biometric information is collected or disclosed. In lieu of answering the question, however, the Seventh Circuit punted the question to the Illinois Supreme Court at the plaintiff’s request.

The plaintiff, a manager at a White Castle restaurant, alleged that the restaurant chain introduced a system that required employees to scan their fingerprints to access pay stubs and work computers. The plaintiff alleged that each scan is sent to a third-party vendor that authenticates it and gives the employee access to the restaurant’s computer system. The plaintiff alleged that based on its use of that system, White Castle violated Sections 15(b) and 15(d) of the BIPA.

Under Section 15(b), a private entity may not “collect, capture, purchase, receive through trade, or otherwise obtain” a person’s biometric data without first providing notice to and receiving consent from the person. Under Section 15(d), a private entity may not “disclose, redisclose, or otherwise disseminate” biometric data without consent of the owner of the biometric data. The plaintiff brought suit not only individually but on behalf of a class of other White Castle employees.

White Castle defended against the lawsuit by seeking judgment on the pleadings. In support of its motion, the company argued that the claims were untimely since they accrued in 2008 when the plaintiff’s first fingerprint scan occurred after the BIPA came into effect. The plaintiff responded that every unauthorized collection or disclosure of biometric data constituted a separate violation of the statute, meaning a new claim accrued with each fingerprint scan. This meant, the plaintiff argued, that each scan started the clock on its own limitations period. The distinction is no small issue as the BIPA allows a successful plaintiff to recover the greater of actual damages or statutory damages of $1,000 for each negligent violation and $5,000 for each reckless or willful violation. The District Court ultimately denied White Castle’s motion but thought the issue important enough to warrant an interlocutory appeal. Continue reading ›

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Palin’s lawsuit against The New York Times alleges the newspaper defamed her in an editorial it published that incorrectly linked Palin’s own political rhetoric with a mass shooting that took place near Tucson, AZ in 2011 in which six people were killed and 14 others were wounded. The casualties included Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head and was a Democratic member of Congress at the time.

As it happened, the editorial about Palin was published on June 14th, 2017. That same day, a gunman opened fire on several Republican congressmen at a baseball field in Virginia. The editorial suggested the 2017 shooting in Virginia was evidence of how violent American politics had become.

The editorial also suggested Palin’s own violent language might have incited the 2011 shooting, pointing to a map that had been circulated by Palin’s own political action committee that showed crosshairs over congressional districts Republicans were hoping to pick up in the next election, including Giffords’s district.

The Times later corrected the error by saying it had made a mistake in linking the shooting with Palin’s rhetoric, but her libel lawsuit against the newspaper is still going forward in the courts. It is just one in a string of lawsuits against major news outlets that want media outlets to pay a higher price for making a mistake. Continue reading ›

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An Illinois appeals court recently held that the plaintiffs in a commercial litigation lawsuit could not sustain claims for fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, conversion, and tortious interference with contract because the claims were untimely. The Court also affirmed dismissal of the plaintiffs’ claims for respondeat superior liability, prejudgment interest and attorney’s fees on the basis that the substantive underlying claims were untimely or had been released by the plaintiffs.

The appeal stemmed from a November 2016 lawsuit filed by Edward Shrock, a minority owner of the company Baby Supermall, LLC, against the company’s bank and the bank’s vice president for allegedly aiding the company’s majority owner, Robert Meier, in using the company as his “personal piggy bank” and misappropriating millions of dollars from the company during a decade-long scheme. According to Schrock’s complaint the company was eventually driven to insolvency as a result of Meier’s scheme.

The 2016 lawsuit followed on the heels of another lawsuit Schrock filed against Meier in 2009, which alleged nearly the same underlying facts as alleged in the 2016 lawsuit against the bank. In the 2009 suit, Schrock won an injunction enjoining Meier and his family from taking payments from the company under certain “profit-sharing” plans Meier had drafted and entered with the company. Following entry of the injunction in the 2009 case, Schrock won an approximately $11 million jury verdict against Meier, which Schrock later released in 2018 even though the judgment had only been partially satisfied. Continue reading ›

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Pay equity has become a hot topic of discussion and legislative focus across the United States in the last few years as states seek to adopt stricter pay equity laws and to increase enforcement efforts combating pay inequities for members of protected classes. At the federal level, Congress has introduced legislation aimed at securing pay equity. The Biden administration has also indicated its support for plans to strengthen pay equity between men and women. At the state level, Illinois is one of many states, including California and New York, to have passed or amended pay equity and related laws.

In June 2021, Illinois updated its equal pay reporting and compliance requirements. This amendment followed on the heels of another amendment to the same law passed in March 2021. Illinois Senate Bill 1847 amended the Illinois Equal Pay Act (IEPA) by expanding certain reporting requirements and by accelerating deadlines to certify compliance by potentially up to two years. The June 2021 amendments sought to clarify certain ambiguities in reporting requirements that had been previously identified and to revise the IEPA’s controversial penalty provision. Importantly for Illinois employers, some Illinois employers will be subject to reporting and certification obligations under the IEPA beginning in 2022 instead of in 2024.

The June 2021 amendments to the IEPA apply to private employers with more than 100 employees in Illinois and requires these employers to:

  • Apply for an “equal pay registration certificate” from the Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL).
  • Pay a $150 filing fee and an equal pay compliance statement to the IDOL.
  • Submit their most recent Employer Information Report EEO-1.
  • Compile and submit demographic data and wage records.

Continue reading ›

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In a decision dealing with prior restraints on speech, the First District Appellate Court recently held that the trial court overstepped federal and state constitutional bounds when it ordered a company and its president to refrain from making any future online statements about a vendor the company had hired. The First District vacated the order entered by Cook County Circuit Judge Diane M. Shelley and issued an opinion explaining why the trial court’s order violated longstanding constitutional principles of free speech.

The plaintiff, Same Condition, LLC is a company that sought to create a web-based, medical patient-centered software application. Same Condition’s president, Munish Kumar, was a counter-defendant in the suit. Same Condition hired the defendant, Codal, Inc., to develop its software application. Codal allegedly failed to deliver the software application on time and when it did, Same Condition found the software to be unacceptable.

In May 2019, Same Condition sued Codal for breach of contract, among other claims. Codal then countersued Same Condition and Kumar for defamation per se, defamation per quod, violation of the Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act and commercial disparagement based on critical comments and reviews that Same Condition and Kumar had posted online. Continue reading ›

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Federal law allows schools to collaborate on their formulas for determining the amount of financial aid to award students, but they are not allowed to consider an applicant’s need for aid when determining whether to accept their application to become a student. A recent class-action lawsuit against 16 major U.S. universities alleges that, not only were the universities collaborating on their financial aid formulas, but that they did so in order to fix their prices, and that their actions unfairly limited the financial aid students were able to receive. The federal lawsuit also alleges that the defendants do factor an applicant’s need for aid in their admissions decisions and is therefore claiming they should not be eligible for the antitrust exemption.

Not only did this allegedly cheat undergraduate applicants out of financial aid, but if the allegations are true, they also would have made it more difficult for underprivileged candidates to gain admission to the universities.

The lawsuit is seeking a permanent injunction against the schools’ ability to collaborate on financial aid formulas, as well as damages to five former students who attended some of the schools.

But the five named plaintiffs are just the tip of the iceberg. The financial aid lawsuit currently names 16 of the biggest universities in the U.S. as defendants, including Georgetown University, Northwestern University, and Yale University. With so many schools listed as defendants in the federal financial aid lawsuit, the attorneys representing the plaintiffs think more than 170,000 undergraduate students who received at least partial financial aid from those schools over the past 18 years could be eligible to participate in the federal class-action lawsuit. Continue reading ›

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently joined the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits in ruling in favor of insurers facing COVID-19 business interruption lawsuits. The consolidated appeal dealt with three different claims under Illinois law brought by affected businesses in a diversified range of industries from a dentist office to a hotel.

Each of the plaintiffs was a business that had purchased a commercial-property insurance policy from the Cincinnati Insurance Company. Shortly after the initial outbreak of COVID in Illinois, Governor J.B. Pritzker issued several executive orders that forced each business to shut down or drastically scale back operations. As a result, the businesses claimed to have lost substantial business income and submitted claims to Cincinnati under their policies. Cincinnati denied each of the plaintiff’s insurance claims. Continue reading ›

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