A Chicago teacher who had been fired for failing to report a principal’s request to fudge state test scores will be allowed to keep his job, and collect back pay and benefits, after a state appeals court upheld the decision of a lower court to overrule the Chicago Board of Education’s move to fire the teacher.
The Illinois Supreme Court has again sided with public worker retirees, saying retired Chicago Transportation Authority workers have a right to sue the CTA under the Illinois constitution’s so-called pension protection clause for requiring retirees to pay more for their health insurance.
The state’s largest public high school district, serving students from several communities in northwest suburban Cook County, will need to defend against a personal injury lawsuit brought by a Conant High School student who said a gym teacher’s decision to not require eye protection for students playing floor hockey left him with an injured eye.
A state appellate panel has upheld a $22 million verdict awarded to a former carpenter who was seriously injured while constructing booths for a trade show at McCormick Place.
An appeals panel has clarified that those in the business of targeting underwater homeowners, and particularly racial minorities, with false promises to pull them to the surface for a fee, can be considered mortgage lenders under the law and subject to action by the Illinois attorney general for discriminatory lending activity.
A state appeals court has ruled state law does not allow pension boards to include special buyout-generated pay bumps at the end of a firefighter’s career to be included in calculating a retiree’s pension.
Unraveling what it called a “classic clash of apparently conflicting statutes,” an Illinois appeals panel has ruled the family of a woman who died while her medical negligence lawsuit was pending against a doctor, the University of Chicago Medical Center and affiliates is not blocked by a statute of repose from adding wrongful death claims to the preexisting lawsuit.
A state appeals panel has decided a Cook County judge was correct in slapping a stay on a legal malpractice claim against Chicago law firm Chuhak & Tecson over allegations the firm misled investors into sinking money into buying into federal nonconventional fuel tax credit partnerships, saying, while plaintiffs may wish to move ahead with their lawsuit, the case must take a backseat for now to a criminal tax case pending against an indicted lawyer.
A state appeals panel has ordered a lawyer to fork over another $22,864 in sanctions – bringing his total to more than $166,000 – for filing “frivolous” motions and appeals meant to harass a company that runs a chain of child care centers, in connection with a suit the lawyer pursued on behalf of a former employee fired by the company.
An appellate court panel has waded into a dispute between Winnetka neighbors, affirming a lower court’s ruling that a couple whose home borders the Lake Michigan shore has no legal obligation to allow neighbors to cross their property in order to access the beach.
A man who claimed someone had fraudulently run up more than $2,500 in debt on a credit card opened in his name without his knowledge has secured another chance to press a lawsuit against a suburban debt collection agency, after a state appeals panel found the agency may have broken federal debt collection laws by suing the man over the contested debt after the statute of limitations had expired.
The Illinois First District Appellate Court has upheld a Cook County Circuit Court ruling that an increase in the state’s cigarette tax does not violate the state constitution. Casey’s Marketing Company, which operates hundreds of Casey’s General Store convenience stores, filed the initial complaint in the wake of state legislation in 2012 to roughly double the per cigarette tax charged to those who sell them.
Environmental action groups have secured a legal victory in their efforts to force the region’s largest treater of wastewater to limit the amount of phosphorus – a fertilizing chemical that can cause destructive algae blooms in rivers and streams – put into local streams by its sewage treatment plants, as an Illinois appellate panel said state regulatory bodies were wrong to grant permits for three of the region’s largest treatment plants without more stringent phosphorus limits in place.
Chicago State University will need to pay a whistleblower more than $3.3 million in damages after a state appellate panel said the jury didn’t err in finding the whistleblower was fired for refusing to bottle up public documents that may have cost the incoming president of the public university on Chicago’s South Side the chance to draw a pension along with his salary.
After the Illinois Supreme Court refused to hear the casino owners' appeal, Cook County now has the green light to collect $3 million in unpaid taxes from Midwest Gaming, owner and operator of Des Plaines’ Rivers Casino.
An American Airlines worker who was fired by the airline for helping a passenger secure a seating upgrade and some champagne for the flight has been cleared to collect unemployment benefits, after the Illinois Supreme Court found, since the worker did nothing illegal or obviously wrong, American Airlines’ lack of clear, written governing how to give passenger upgrades negated the airline’s claims it had the right to fire the worker for “misconduct.”
An Illinois appeals panel has backed a Cook County judge’s ruling that Bank of America and a Chicago advertising agency didn’t pull a fast one on a Skokie accountant, by reaching a zero-dollar settlement in a $1 million embezzlement lawsuit, saving the ad agency untold sums in legal fees and shielding the bank from the accountant’s countersuit.
The First District Appellate Court of Illinois expressed strong disapproval of a Cook County circuit court judge’s handling of a domestic violence case, in which the alleged victim’s request for an order of protection was denied and a less-stringent civil restraining order was issued instead.
He hasn’t been Illinois’ governor for more than a year, but some of Pat Quinn’s actions are still being weighed by Illinois’ courts. On Jan. 19, a state appellate court overturned the administrative decision of the Illinois Labor Relations Board to uphold Quinn’s exemption of certain Pollution Control Board employees from collective bargaining.
In a sharply worded 2-1 decision, the Illinois First District Appellate Court in Chicago overturned a lower court decision and barred a plaintiff from serving as representative in a class-action suit involving allegedly unsolicited faxes, describing the plaintiff as a "tool'"of his lawyer.
