A year after the Illinois Department of Natural Resources proposed the first draft of the administrative rules regulating high-volume hydraulic fracking, the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules approved the final rules on November 6, 2014, which are to be published in the Illinois Register by November 15, 2014.
Several Southern Illinois landowners and an environmental group, Southern Illinoisans Against Fracturing our Environment (SAFE), filed suit this week in Madison County seeking an injunction against the recently passed Horizontal Fracturing Regulatory Act ...
Hydraulic fracturing—“fracking”—involves pumping water mixed with sand and chemicals deep underground to create cracks in a shale formation to allow oil or natural gas to be recovered. Concern has been raised that these cracks will allow the fracking chemicals and/or methane gas to contaminate the groundwater near the fracking operation. Two recent studies dispel this concern.
The Department of Energy released a report finding that fracking chemicals and gas are not migrating up through the rock to groundwater. This report followed an 18-month study of fracking ...
He drove a blue Volkswagen Rabbit to the United States Supreme Court for many years. He wrote so many lone dissents in his first years on the court that he was dubbed the “Lone Ranger”. Years after he became Chief Justice, William Rehnquist added four gold stripes to the sleeves of his judicial robes, in tribute to the Lord Chancellor character in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas he loved. When his health declined and the press asked him when he planned to retire, he responded, “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
Though characteristically blunt of the former Chief Justice ...
It has been over a year since Illinois took the first step towards regulated high-volume hydraulic fracking by passing the Illinois Hydraulic Fracturing Regulatory Act225 ILCS 732/1-1 et seq. Under the Act, high-volume, horizontal hydraulic fracturing operations require a permit. But a permit could not be obtained until the Illinois Department of Natural Resources published the administrative rules that will govern fracking. Recently, the IDNR released amended proposed rules for final approval by the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, which has until November 15 to ...
On June 27, 2014, the Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, held that a plaintiff’s common-law negligence action against her decedent’s employer was not barred by the exclusive remedy provision of Illinois’ workers’ compensation statutes[1] because her work comp claim would have been non-compensable as untimely under the law’s repose provisions.
The Decedent was allegedly exposed to asbestos at a plant owned by defendant Ferro Engineering (“Ferro”) from 1966 to 1970. Folta v. Ferro Engineering, 2014 IL App (1st) 123219, ¶ 1, (Ill. App. Ct. 1st Dist. June ...
In an attempt to placate those individuals who relish purchasing tickets and seating themselves in the stadium seats, professional sports teams have been mixing ingredients to concoct new forms of side entertainment. Sports enthusiasts are hard pressed to attend a sporting event where mascots aren't launching T-shirts into the stands, where the "kiss-cam" isn't plastered on the Jumbotron, or where remote control blimps aren't dropping coupons.
The Kansas City Royals ("Royals") baseball team is no exception. However, little did the Royals—or any professional sports ...
We’ve all heard the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff—the one in which three goats need to cross a bridge in order to reach the lush meadow on the other side. But a hungry troll lived under the bridge, waiting to eat all those who dared to pass. The troll wasn’t very smart, though. After being tricked by three goats (you can find the full story here), the bridge troll was never heard from again.
Unfortunately for many US companies, that’s not the case with the modern-day patent troll. Although patent trolls may be smarter than the bridge troll of the children’s story, they are still ...
In United Fire and Casualty Co. v. Titan Contractors Service, Inc., No. 13-1307 (8th Cir. May 13, 2014), the Eighth Circuit weighed in on just how broad the pollution exclusion in a commercial general liability insurance policy is under Missouri law – which is, according to the Eighth Circuit, rather broad. In doing so, the Eighth Circuit declined to adopt the more narrow interpretation previously applied by the Court of Appeals for the Southern District of Missouri.
United Fire’s insured, Titan, provided construction-cleanup services. Part of these services included ...
“The Best Fans in Baseball” (or BFIB). That moniker long has been attributed to fans of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team, or at least has been attributed by fans of that team to themselves. The original author of BFIB with respect to Cardinals’ fans remains something of a mystery-- with stories pointing to players such as Mark McGwire and Jim Edmonds, baseball commentators like Peter Gammons, former manager Tony LaRussa, or fellow manager (and Friend of Tony) Jim Leyland. The labeling of Cardinals’ fan as the BFIB has caused quite a backlash among fans from other teams ...
“Where did you go to high school?” is a peculiar St. Louis question that perplexes newcomers to the area. For the insurance savvy traveler here, a new question may replace it: “Where do you garage this vehicle that you propose to carry me and others for compensation or a fee?”
That sort of question may gain relevance due to the introduction of two new transportation networking companies in cities across the country, Uber and Lyft. These two companies offer mobile applications for iPhone, Android and Blackberry devices that connect consumers to drivers in select cities ...
