Effective January 1, 2019, the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act (IWPCA), 820 ILCS 115/1 et seq., requires employers to reimburse employees for all “necessary expenditures” or losses that an employee incurs in the scope of their employment. Prior to the amendment, Illinois law generally did not require employers to reimburse employees for business expenses. Illinois is now the ninth state to impose such a reimbursement requirement on employers—joining states such as California, Iowa, and New Hampshire which have similar laws.
The IWPCA defines necessary expenditures as “all reasonable expenditures. . . required of the employee in the discharge of employment duties and that inure to the primary benefit of the employer.” In addition to the necessary expenditure requirement, for an expense to be reimbursable: (1) the employer must have “authorized or required” the expense; and (2) the employee must request reimbursement of the expense incurred along with all appropriate documentation validating the expense within 30 days of incurring the expense—unless the employer’s reimbursement policy provides for a longer period. The law specifically excludes the following types of losses from those that an employer is obligated to reimburse: (1) losses due to an employee’s own negligence; (2) losses due to normal wear; and (3) losses due to theft unless the theft was a result of the employer’s negligence. Continue reading ›
Our Chicago automobile fraud and Lemon law attorneys near Naperville, Wilmette, and Elmhurst have experience representing victims of odometer rollbacks, title washing, fake or improper certifications of rebuilt wrecks and other used car scams. We bring individual and class actions suits for defective cars with common design defects and auto dealer fraud and other car dealer scams such as selling rebuilt wrecks as certified used cars or misrepresenting a car as being in good condition when it is rebuilt wreck or had the odometer rolled back. We also see cases where new car dealers conceal that the car has been in an accident while in their possession and even certified it as a certified used car warranted by the manufacturer as having passed a multi-point inspection or used car dealers who put duck tape in the back of the check engine light to conceal serious engine or emission problems. Super Lawyers has selected our DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, Will and Cook County Illinois auto-fraud, car dealer fraud, and lemon law lawyers as among the top 5% in Illinois. We only collect our fee if we win or settle your case. We handle cases near Evanston and Skokie and throughout the Chicago area. For a free consultation call our Chicago class action lawyers at our toll-free number 630-333-0333 or contact us on the web by clicking here.
Our Chicago automobile fraud and Lemon law attorneys near Naperville, Elmhurst and Oak Brook have experience representing victims of odometer rollbacks, title washing, fake or improper certifications of rebuilt wrecks and other used car scams. We bring individual and class actions suits for defective cars with common design defects and auto dealer fraud and other car dealer scams such as selling rebuilt wrecks as certified used cars or misrepresenting a car as being in good condition when it is rebuilt wreck or had the odometer rolled back. We also see cases where new car dealers conceal that the car has been in an accident while in their possession and even certified it as a certified used car warranted by the manufacturer as having passed a multi-point inspection or used car dealers who put duck tape in the back of the check engine light to conceal serious engine or emission problems. Super Lawyers has selected our DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, Will and Cook County Illinois auto-fraud, car dealer fraud, and lemon law lawyers as among the top 5% in Illinois. We only collect our fee if we win or settle your case. We handle cases near Geneva and Elgin and throughout the Chicago area. For a free consultation call our Chicago class action lawyers at our toll-free number 630-333-0333 or contact us on the web by clicking here.
We represent consumers all over the Chicago Area in used car auto-fraud cases for odometer rollbacks and certified used cars which are in fact rebuilt wrecks. We have handled many of these cases and only obtain our attorneys’ fees out a settlement or judgment. Call us for a free consultation at 630-333-0333.
Knowing where to bring a lawsuit and what state’s laws to apply can have a huge impact on the success of business litigation. Courts have developed extensive and complicated rules and procedures for determining where a lawsuit should be brought and which jurisdiction’s laws to apply, but that procedure is rarely simple or straightforward. Conflicts between the laws of two or more states can complicate the matter further. Agreeing in advance to jurisdiction and venue can provide certainty and save a great deal of time and money in the unfortunate event litigation does ensue. For this reason, companies often address in the contract itself how any disputes or litigation will be handled. A common example includes “forum selection” or “choice of venue” provisions, which identify a specific state (or even a specific county within a state) as the proper jurisdiction and venue for litigation.
Forum selection is a particularly important part of a contract when the parties are from different jurisdictions, especially when the laws of those jurisdictions differ significantly from one another. A forum selection provision gives a business the security of knowing that any litigation will take place in a familiar location applying a familiar set of substantive laws. However, a poorly worded forum selection provision may not provide the security hoped for as a recent opinion from Delaware’s Chancery Court in a partnership dispute case demonstrates. The case, In re Bay Hills Emerging Partners I, L.P., et al, involved the issue of whether a forum selection provision in a limited partnership agreement required all lawsuits to be filed exclusively in Kentucky. Continue reading ›
Lubin Austermuehle and Viriant’s Combined Efforts Help Remove Defamatory Internet Posts
Lubin Austermuehle is among a handful of leading lawyers from across the country picked as a member of Viriant’s nationwide network to protect companies, doctors, lawyers, accountants and other professionals from defamation on the cyber smears and internet defamation. We are excited to announce the continuation of our longtime partnership with Viriant.
Lubin Austermuehle has over thirty years of experience representing large and small businesses, and professionals such as lawyers in doctors in protecting their businesses from harmful online defamation and cyber smear attacks. We recently obtained a full retraction and apology for our large diamond wholesale client who was exposed to a sustained and targeted internet smear campaign. We filed libel per se suit against the perpetrator for $16 million and demanded the retraction and apology as a settlement term. You learn more about that suit here.
Rialmo and Former Drew Peterson Attorney Joel Brodsky seeks to overturn 7th Circuit Order Affirming $50,000 sanction with pro se brief claiming ineffective assistance of counsel.
You can read the pro se petition for rehearing here where Brodsky claims his sanctions hearing and appellate attorney allegedly caused him to incur the sanction award that may lead to his claimed financial ruin.
We defend and prosecute cyber smear and internet defamation cases throughout the Chicago area including near Schaumburg, Aurora, and Wheaton.
We have defeated claims against our clients with a number of creative defenses founded on the First Amendment, Innocent Construction or personal jurisdiction defenses. We have also prevailed against such defenses for our libel plaintiff clients who have pursued defamations and slander claims. We have obtained removal from the internet of commercially defamatory reviews against our business and professional services clients such as doctors and lawyers posted on internet review sites such as Google and Yelp.
You can view here a decision in an internet defamation case involving a negative review on the Rip-Off Report where we successfully defended our client by obtaining a dismissal based on lack of personal jurisdiction. For a detailed discussion of the personal jurisdiction defense in internet defamation cases, you can go to our website.
You can view here a Yelp review by our client of our firm regarding the result we obtained in winning her case. This client was wrongfully sued for negative Yelp and other reviews against a daycare center that had been closed down by the Department of Children and Family Services for alleged negligent care of young children.
The Digital Media Law Website is a great resource for non-lawyers to learn about defamation law. It defines defamation as follows:
Defamation
Defamation is the general term for a legal claim involving injury to one’s reputation caused by a false statement of fact and includes both libel (defamation in written or fixed form) and slander (spoken defamation). The crux of a defamation claim is falsity. Truthful statements that harm another’s reputation will not create liability for defamation (although they may open you up to other forms of liability if the information you publish is of a personal or highly private nature).
Defamation in the United States is governed by state law. While the U.S. Constitution sets some limits on what states can do in the context of free speech, the specific elements of a defamation claim can — and often do — vary from state to state. Accordingly, you should consult your state’s law in the State Law: Defamation section of this guide for specific information.
There are many defenses to defamation and slander claims. Our lawyers concentrate in this area and can provide our clients — both plaintiffs and defendants — with considerable resources to guide their claims through the intricacies of these defenses. You can go to our two websites to learn more about theses defenses here and here.
Here is a video regarding a client we defended in an internet defamation claim. We settled federal court case in favor of our client after we filed a sanctions motion against the used car dealer plaintiff for filing an allegedly false lawsuit; our client received a full release and all of his videos and negative video reviews remained on the internet after we won an arbitration proceeding against the dealer which was part of the settlement of the federal court suit dismissing all of the claims. Here is a new story about the case.
You can read the Arbitrator’s decision upholding our client’s rights to keep his videos posted on the internet here. While the Arbitrator disagreed with our client’s tactics and did not endorse his conduct, he found our client had a First Amendment Right to speak his mind as long as he told the truth or simply voiced his opinions no matter how negative. The Arbitrator held as follows based on our cross-examination of the Claimant’s owner proving that our client had told the truth when he claimed that the Claimant auto dealership had engaged in consumer fraud in the past and that our client had only made minor errors in his hundreds of postings and video reviews on Youtube of the auto dealership:
There is no issue that Claimant has engaged in false advertising. [It’s owner] has admitted as much and more, including submitting a false affidavit in litigation antecedent to this arbitration. Judgments and pleadings are public records; disseminating this information that is part of a public record is not actionable. In addition, the fact of entry of judgment provides a colorable foundation for the opinions and conclusions published by Bates. As much as the Claimants would like to explain away these events, and as minor a part this conduct has played in comparison with the totality of business operations, the facts are what they are; once in the public domain these facts can be both circulated and commented on. In addition, insignificant errorata is not actionable in any event, and it is conceded that many postings are of this character.
We represent consumers who have brought Certified Pre-Owned Used Car Owners which is a rebuilt wreck. We have brought suit against many different manufacturers, such as Ford and GM, who have not stood behind the certification inspection which warrants that the used car was “like new” and thus had never been in a serious accident. In fact, the multi-point inspection missed that the used car had frame or other structural damage yet even though it passed the manufacturer refuses to stand behind the inspection claiming that the used car dealer, not the manufacturer is responsible for the inspection. Our position is that this is a fraudulent position and we pursue alleged claims against the manufacturer based on this legal position for all the consumers’ damages plus attorneys fees and punitive damages.
Chicago Business Litigation Lawyer Blog
