The Joint Tortfeasor Contribution Act (the Act), 740 ILCS 100/0.01, et seq., codified the Illinois Supreme Court’s opinion in Skinner v. Reed-Prentice Division Package Machinery Co., 70 Ill. 2d 1 (1977), and created a right of contribution among joint tortfeasors. BHI Corp. v. Litgen Concrete Cutting & Coring Co., 214 Ill. 2d 356, 363 (2005). Since its inception, the Act’s application has been the subject of hundreds of Illinois appellate court and supreme court opinions. Despite this abundance of jurisprudence, many questions remain unanswered when addressing the ...
The United States Supreme Court recently handed down a decision that may affect whether and when state and federal district courts can exercise general jurisdiction over non-resident corporations. In Daimler AG v. Bauman, et al., US Supreme Court no 11-965 (January 14, 2014), the U.S. Supreme Court held that Daimler AG, a German Corporation with headquarters in Stuttgart Germany, was not amenable to personal jurisdiction in Federal Court in California because it was not incorporated in California, did not have its principal place of business there and could not be said to otherwise ...
Stratus Building Solutions faced a business challenge on a bet the company scale. Despite winning many franchise awards, five franchisees charged that its entire system imposed a fraud on franchisees. The plaintiffs sued 179 defendants, including the system franchisor, master (regional) franchisors, and over 70 individuals associated with the franchise system of violating §§ 1962(c) & (d) of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”). They claim the Defendants collectively operate the Stratus franchise system through a massive, but vaguely ...
In Parko, et al. v. Shell Oil Co. et al., Nos. 13-8023 & 8024 (7th Cir. Jan. 17, 2014), Judge Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently reversed an order from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois granting class certification to a group of plaintiffs who alleged that an industrial site leaked benzene and other contaminants into the groundwater under the proposed class members’ properties, thereby damaging the value of these properties. Judge Posner distinguished the case from an opinion he authored in Mejdrech v ...
On October 11, 2013, the Illinois Appellate Court for the Fourth District, which includes 30 counties in central Illinois, affirmed summary judgment orders for two defendants. In Bowles v. Owens-Illinois, Inc., the Plaintiff, Decedent’s surviving spouse, brought lung cancer claims against Owens-Illinois and John Crane.
The cancer was allegedly caused by his exposure to asbestos while aboard the USS Floyd B. Parks. The Decedent was on board the Parks for less than two years. Additionally, the Decedent only worked in the ship’s radio room. The Plaintiff introduced deposition ...
Judge John Tharp of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois recently granted a motion for summary judgment in favor of Ameren Illinois in the case of Peter Stanley v. Ameren Illinois Company, et al., 1:12-cv-06073, involving a 76-year-old engineer who died of mesothelioma.
Peter Stanley spent his career as a boiler engineer for Babcock & Wilcox. From 1961 to 1967, he worked as a field start-up engineer, commissioning new boilers at numerous industrial sites throughout the Midwest. No defendant disputed that Peter Stanley was exposed to asbestos from thermal ...
In Issue 48 of the Midwest Toxic Release (June 2012), we encouraged more investigation into the causes of non-smoking lung cancer cases as the number of lung cancer filings was rising. Over a year later, the number of lung cancer cases filed in 2013 in Madison County and the City of St. Louis has exceeded the number of lung cancer cases filed in both jurisdictions in all of 2012. As of December 16, 2013, in Madison County, 581 lung cancer cases had been filed. In 2012, in Madison County, 488 lung cancer cases were filed and 153 lung cancer cases were filed in 2011. Lung cancer cases in the City of ...
Commercial adversaries are often tempted to transform breach of contract or warranty matters into negligence or negligent misrepresentation claims. Or fraud or other intentional tort claims. The lure of a more flexible claim before a jury can be hard to resist. Or the governing contract may have limitation of liability restrictions that make warranty and contractual claims unavailing. Nevertheless, The Eighth Circuit, interpreting Missouri law, strongly reaffirmed its view that tort claims cannot be substituted for matters of contractual risk allocation unless very narrow ...
In many commercial contexts an agreement includes a provision that selects a forum for future dispute resolution. Frequently, when conflict arises, a party may try to avoid the selected forum and file the first case on their home turf. The other party to the contract has to respond, but how?
Atlantic Marine Construction Co., a Virginia corporation, faced this issue in a construction contract dispute on a Texas project. Despite a standard forum-selection clause requiring litigation of disputes in state or federal court in Norfolk, Virginia, a subcontractor filed a preemptive suit ...
Although the battle over state income taxes between Missouri Governor Jay Nixon and the Missouri General Assembly drew national attention to this week’s Veto Session, three lesser known bills will have a more immediate impact on civil tort litigation in Missouri. On September 11, 2013, the legislature overrode the Governor’s veto on three bills that provide certain limits on tort claims against insured drivers, voluntary health care providers, and hard rock mining companies.
Uninsured Motorist Plaintiffs. House Bill 339 provides that an “uninsured motorist” waives ...
