CHICAGO — A Northwestern University law professor was unable to convince a federal appeals panel to grant her a new trial after a jury ruled against her in a defamation lawsuit stemming from a dispute over a seven-figure inheritance dispute.
According to a May 10 filing from the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the issue dates to 2012 when Bernard Black’s mother died, leaving a $3 million estate. Black and his wife, Katherine Litvak Black, are Northwestern law professors who expected to inherit a third of the estate.
“But it turns out that Bernard’s mother cut them out of her will and left virtually the entire estate to Bernard’s homeless and mentally ill sister, Joanne, who lived in Denver,” according to Judge Michael Kanne, who wrote the opinion, with concurrence from Judges Ilana Rovner and David Hamilton. “So in late 2012, Bernard had himself appointed Joanne’s conservator and then worked to redirect much of her inheritance to himself and Katherine.”
Katherine Litvak Black
| Northwestern University
Bernard’s cousin, Cherie Wrigley, hired her friend Esaun Pinto as a private investigator to find Joanne. When Joanne moved to New York in 2013, Black and Wrigley each asked a state court there to name them guardian of her property. In Denver, Gayle Young, as Joanne’s guardian, “discovered that Bernard had diverted much of Joanne’s inheritance to himself.”
Young then hired forensic accountant Pamela Kerr, who investigated Black and Pinto, determining Pinto had been withdrawing funds from Joanne’s account. That led to an April 2015 probate hearing resulting in an order suspending Bernard’s role as conservator and ordering Pinto to provide accounting records to Kerr.
“The hearing stoked tensions,” Kanne wrote. “Afterward, Wrigley allegedly said to Katherine, ‘You, you, you need a sex change operation. And I will arrange this for you, whether you want it or not.’ Wrigley then allegedly confronted Katherine at the airport and threatened to file a false report with child services to have her children taken away.”
The Denver probate court found Black guilty of civil theft, trebled damages and entered a $4.5 million judgement, later confirmed on appeal. In January 2016, Litvak Black sent a 23-page letter, on Northwestern letterhead, to the New York court that, among other allegations, accused Pinto of theft. Wrigley sent an ethics complaint to Northwestern, attaching a draft letter Kerr wrote denying the allegations.
In January 2017, Litvak Black sued Wrigley and Kerr in federal court in Chicago, alleging the letter constituted defamation and accusing Wrigley of intentional infliction of emotional distress. During the August 2019 trial, “Nothing went as Katherine had hoped,” Kanne wrote, including her attempt to present her own closing argument despite having hired attorney Donald Homyk - whom she then asked to fire on the spot.
According to Kanne, Judge Matthew Kennelly said Homyk, one of two lawyers representing Litvak Black, was “more than competent” and initially denied a request to continue closing arguments so Litvak Black could make her own statement or bring in a new lawyer. He noted that as a witness she repeatedly violated judge's instructions on inappropriate remarks. When Homyk remarked he was physically ill and unable to continue, Kennelly continued the trial to the following Monday, at which time he completed his work before a jury ruled in favor of Wrigley and Kerr.
Litvak Black appealed that verdict, acting as her own attorney. The panel rejected her arguments that her trial was “riddled with errors,” Kanne wrote, and denied her request for a new trial.
Beyond dispute over her own closing statement, Litvak Black also contended Kennelly excluded evidence, allowed defense attorneys to make improper statements and erred in jury instructions on a defamation claim.
The only area in which the appellate panel was sympathetic was the issue of jury instructions. Kennelly said Wrigley and Kerr were wrong to say Litvak Black dismissed her defamation claim before the trial and that she was right to expect her own instructions to the jury regarding Wrigley’s statements. However, it said Litvak Black didn’t establish how that possible error of omission affected the outcome of her trial, especially “given the evidence and arguments presented at trial, plus the jury’s verdict in favor of defendants on every one of Katherine’s claims.”
The panel denied the request for a new trial and refused to overturn the jury’s verdict.
Litvak has also filed suit in Cook County circuit court against three trusts established for Joanne Black. Litvak has claimed she is owed hundreds of thousands of dollars from the trusts.