DiTomasso Lubin Law Offices

Saying the law is essentially antiquated and violates the equal protection rights of divorced parents, a DuPage County judge has found a state law requiring divorced couples to fund their children’s college education to be unconstitutional.

The city of Chicago should not be allowed to sidestep laws barring cities from collecting taxes on real estate sold by federal mortgage lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by simply passing on the tax bills to those buying the properties from Fannie and Freddie, a federal judge has ruled.

Calling the lawsuit an example of a “racket” aimed at merging companies, a federal appeals panel in Chicago has tossed out a settlement intended to end a shareholder class action brought over the Walgreens Boots Alliance merger, saying the lawsuit and related settlement did nothing more than contribute a quick $370,000 payment to the plaintiffs’ lawyers.

A little less than a year after Walgreens and some of its shareholders moved to settle a class action over a lack of disclosures to shareholders who said they were concerned over the company’s merger with European retail pharmacy operator Alliance Boots, objectors to that settlement deal are hoping a federal appeals court will toss out or rewrite the settlement over concerns the deal is little more than a $370,000 payoff to trial lawyers.

The blizzard of litigation filed against Volkswagen in the wake of revelations the automaker allegedly installed devices on diesel cars to fool emissions testing equipment has been redirected to federal court in San Francisco. Across the country, more than 500 lawsuits - primarily class action complaints - have been lodged in federal district courts against Volkswagen. In the Northern District of Illinois, for instance, 19 such lawsuits have been filed against VW.

The directors and executive of an Oakbrook Terrace-based provider of digital financial security products has been hit with a lawsuit brought by a shareholder who has claimed the company’s management should be made to pay for allegedly concealing from investors – or at least not properly moving to address – the possibility an international distributor sold the company’s products to buyers in Iran while economic sanctions forbidding such sales were in place.

The class action lawsuits continue to pile up against Volkswagen over allegations it installed devices to fool government emissions testing equipment, both in Chicago’s courtrooms and in courts across the country. As of Oct. 8, more than 400 class actions have been filed in federal district courts in states throughout the U.S. against the automaker, and more continue to be added.

A woman suing Abercrombie & Fitch over the retailer’s decision to void promotional gift cards after the cards’ expiration dates still has more work to do to prove the retailer did anything wrong, a federal judge said in denying the woman's request for summary judgment in her breach of contract class action against the retailer.