After rejecting an attempt by advocates for those with disabilities to turn their lawsuit over accessibility standards at Kohl’s department stores into a nationwide class action against the retailer, a federal judge has separated the cases, saying he does not hold out much hope the parties will agree to a settlement to resolve their disputes over such things as the width of Kohl’s store aisles and whether stores lived up to the retail chain’s “Shopability Standards.”
Both Caterpillar and the UK-based engineering firm that accused the Illinois-based heavy equipment maker of stealing its trade secrets have appealed, after a federal judge refused to alter a jury's verdict, in which the British engineering firm was awarded more than $90 million.
A disability rights class action brought against Kohl’s more than two and a half years ago is on the shelf after a federal judge in Chicago denied class certification, saying, because Kohl’s store layouts vary from store to store, plaintiffs would have too difficult of a time proving the retailer had in place a nationwide policy diminishing access to people using wheelchairs.
A woman who brought two class action lawsuits against L.A. Tan and some of its local franchisees over how they handle customers’ fingerprint scans has settled one of the lawsuits, as L.A. Tan has agreed to pay $1.5 million - including $600,000 to the attorneys who filed the class action.
A Pennsylvania-born putative class-action suit, which alleges the nationwide retailer Big Lots violated federal law by overstocking job applicant disclosure statements with too much information, has landed in Chicago federal court. The one-count suit, between Aaron Abel and Big Lots Stores, Inc., was filed Nov. 2 in Philadelphia County Court and transferred to Chicago Dec. 15.
A federal jury has ordered one of Illinois’ largest employers, Caterpillar, to pay a small United Kingdom-based company more than $73 million in damages, after the jury found Caterpillar had stolen trade secrets from the supplier business. On Dec. 18, the jury returned a verdict in favor of parts supplier Miller U.K.
A Chicago federal judge has ruled a plaintiff, who is leading a putative class action suit against Amazon for allegedly rejecting his job application after a background check turned up what the plaintiff said is a bogus report of a drug conviction, can’t stop the online retailer from using the plaintiff’s decision to reject a settlement offer as a defense to ward off the class action suit.
A federal judge has slapped a permanent stop sign on a class action lawsuit against the city of Chicago and the vendors it uses to administer its red light camera program, as the judge said the city should be allowed under state law and Illinois’ constitution to delegate the task of reviewing potential red light citations to administrators and technicians hired by the vendors.
A federal judge was not swayed by Family Video’s “creative” arguments against granting class certification in a lawsuit filed by a group of the retailer’s former employees, allowing the litigation to move forward under both federal and Illinois wage and hour laws.
