Jonathan Bilyk News
Judge: Illinois prejudgment lawsuit interest law unconstitutional
A Cook County judge said the law supported by Democratic state lawmakers and Gov. JB Pritzker illegally interferes with jury rights and authority, while improperly penalizing defendants, and gifting personal injury plaintiffs with special benefits not given to anyone else in Illinois
Class action: CVS biometric passport photo system ran afoul of IL biometrics privacy law
The lawsuit claims CVS should pay big, because it didn't provide enough notice to customers of biometric face scans before taking the photos they requested for passports, using a biometric face scanning system designed to comply with federal passport photo rules
Lawsuit: Illinois illegally counts mail-in votes for federal office up to 2 weeks after Election Day
Three Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Michael Bost, have sued the state of Illinois, arguing federal law sets the date of Election Day, and Illinois' vote-by-mail illegally extends Election Day by 14 days
Class action lawsuit accuses Wintrust Bank of racially discriminatory home loans
The complaint asserts Wintrust allegedly declines Black borrowers at higher rates than whites, and approves Black home buyers at terms more onerous than those offered to white borrowers
Judge: Ice cream need only taste like vanilla, not have actual vanilla beans, to defeat deceptive marketing class action
A federal judge dismissed a class action against Prairie Farms, claiming the dairy misled consumers by selling "Premium Vanilla Ice Cream" with vanillin flavoring, rather than real vanilla
IL appeals courts, again: No insurance coverage for Covid shutdowns, mitigations, even if ordered by government
Two different Illinois state appellate court panels rejected attempts by the owners of hotels and restaurants, who were hammered by the government response to the Covid pandemic, to force Zurich American Insurance to cover their losses
Appeals court: Pritzker 2020 biz closure orders, alone, not enough to allow biz owners to sue for illegal takings
The U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals rejected yet another challenge to Pritzker's long-running use of emergency executive powers amid the Covid pandemic, saying plaintiffs didn't provide enough to back their sprawling claims that Pritzker trampled their rights
Chase Bank exec withdraws lawsuit vs ex-colleague
The lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiff
'Legal 3-and-out with a punt:' Judge ends FoxFire suit vs Pritzker restaurant orders; Lawyer worries about precedent
An attorney for Geneva restaurant FoxFire says the case law set in challenges vs Gov. JB Pritzker's use of emergency power sets bad precedent for future, allowing governors to get away with issuing constitutionally 'questionable' orders
Chicago Public Schools: IL health laws, due process rights don't apply to student athlete Covid test rules
Chicago Public Schools says a court should reject an attempt by a high school soccer player to block enforcement of its Covid testing rules for unvaccinated student athletes, which the student claims violate her rights under Illinois law
'Astronomical damages:' IL high court ponders how many fingerprints should be worth up to $5K each under IL biometrics law
With potentially billions of dollars on the line, justices on the state high court must answer the question of how many repeated scans of fingerprints and other biometric data should cost Illinois employers $1,000-$5,000 each under the state's stringent Biometric Information Privacy Act
Class action seeks big payout from SnapChat app parent over Lenses facial recognition tech
Snap Inc. could be on the hook for potentially more than $2 billion in damages under the lawsuit, which says SnapChat Lenses improperly scans users' faces without consent or notice under Illinois' biometrics privacy law
Walgreens says insurers wrongly reneged on duties to cover legal costs, $1B+ damages in opioid lawsuits
Walgreens, the nation's second largest retail pharmacist, has sued more than two dozen insurance companies, asking a court to order them to cover Walgreens' costs related to 2,500 lawsuits pending against the retailer over the opioid crisis
Flossmoor School District: Schools don't need to respect IL health law when ordering kids exposed to Covid to stay home
A lawsuit asserted Flossmoor District 161 violated a family's due process rights when it ordered a fourth grader to stay home because she had been exposed to Covid
Lawsuit says CPS mandatory Covid testing for unvaccinated student athletes discriminatory, illegal
The lawsuit was filed by the mother of a women's soccer team member at Whitney Young High School, who has been barred from playing since late April over objections to CPS' rule requiring only unvaccinated athletes to test exclusively through CPS' Covid testing vendor
Unvaxxed lawyer OK to argue before Seventh Circuit in religious liberty case: Judges
A federal appeals court in Chicago gave prominent religious liberty lawyer Luke Goodrich permission to argue in court, despite not having received a Covid shot. The plaintiffs representing a woman suing a Catholic Archdiocese for discrimination had objected
Civil rights atty Stroth calls for 'full, transparent investigation' of 'brutal' Lyons Township H.S. attack
National civil rights lawyer says Lyons Township High School was "on notice" about video recorded attack vs white freshman girl by Black sophomore girl after class, yet "took no action" to stop it
Judicial Inquiry Board: Appeals judge Sheldon Harris talked with other judges about nephew's case, testified falsely
The Illinois state board tasked with investigating misconduct accusations against judges has asked the Illinois Courts Commission to discipline First District Appellate Justice Sheldon A. Harris, who has announced he is retiring later this year
Judge: 'Distracting' Sephora window ads didn't cause woman to fall down stairs at Woodfield Mall
The plaintiff claimed a window display at the mall's Sephora cosmetics store caused her not to see a flight of four stairs in front of her, causing her to fall and break multiple bones
Lawsuit: School districts have no legal authority to keep kids out of school over Covid exposure
Parents are asking a Cook County judge to declare Flossmoor District 161 overstepped its authority in ordering an elementary school student to stay away from school for 10 days after administrators said they believed the child had been exposed to Covid at school