A federal appeals panel has upheld a federal judge’s decision to end a lawsuit accusing Zillow of breaking state consumer fraud laws when it uses its “Zestimates” to assign values to homes across the country.
Saying plaintiffs had effectively pleaded themselves out of court, a Chicago federal judge has slammed the door on an attempted class action lawsuit accusing operators of real estate website Zillow of breaking state consumer fraud and deceptive practices laws by using their “Zestimates” – an online home value estimation tool – as a “marketing gimmick” to drive business to Zillow’s preferred real estate agents and undercut home sellers’ ability to sell their home for what they believe it should be worth.
An anesthesiology practice will have a second chance to argue that its law firm cost it profits by not including restrictive clauses in employment contracts, leaving two anesthesiologists free to form a competing practice and take a profitable client with them, after a state appeals panel said their lawsuit should not be precluded over tax accounting decisions.
Saying the plaintiffs are asking the court to misread and misapply an Illinois state law, a Chicago federal judge has crashed a class action lawsuit against Zillow, which had accused the operators of the real estate website of essentially appraising property without a license, and then using their online home value estimate tool as a marketing ploy to drive business by hampering home sellers’ efforts to sell their home for what they believe it should be worth.
A north suburban lawyer has expanded her quarrel with real estate website Zillow, agreeing to shelve her personal lawsuit over her home’s “zestimate” – an online estimate of a home value, created and published by Zillow - to pursue a class action lawsuit representing untold numbers of others whose efforts to sell their homes have been hampered by Zillow’s popular estimating feature.
A Chicago businessman has asked a Cook County court to order the county to conduct an audit of the finances of the county’s Circuit Court Clerk office to explain what the businessman says are apparent discrepancies, totaling perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars, between what the businessman and his lawyers believe should have been collected for special-use court funds from millions who pass through the county’s court system, and the figures the court clerk has allegedly publicly reported.
The Cook County Circuit Clerk’s office has misinterpreted a state law allowing it to collect fees from people filing certain motions in court, a state appeals court has said, clearing the way for a Chicago man and his attorney to pursue their lawsuit to secure a court order forcing the clerk’s office to stop demanding the money.
