Quantcast
Channel: Illinois Civil Justice League » adomite
Viewing all 762 articles
Browse latest View live
↧

November 4, 2014

November 4, 2014, 11:16 am
$
0
0
Robo-calls Targeted Chicago Election Judges
From the Chicago Sun-Times
Automated telephone calls to the home phone numbers of thousands of election judges were "a serious attempt to disrupt our operation," Chicago Election board chairman Langdon Neal said Monday.
Neal also said that over the weekend, his office had received a number of “very disturbing reports" about "calls made to our election judges at their homes and on their cell phones.”
Judges of election are the officials responsible for the conduct of the election in each polling place.
About 6,000 of the 15,000 judges in Chicago had received such calls, Neal said. He would not specify whether judges were targeted for these calls based on their party affiliation or geographic area.
A spokeswoman for the Cook County Clerk’s office said some suburban Cook County judges also got some robocalls. But she added that they were disregarded by the suburban election judges, because the information pertained specifically to Chicago judges.
In the calls, judges were told that they had to vote a certain way in order to serve as election judges, Neal said. They were also incorrectly told they needed an additional training session.
Only one three-hour session given by the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners is required.
Read more in our daily News Update...
↧
Search

November 5, 2014

November 5, 2014, 11:17 am
$
0
0
Barberis Wins Madison County Circuit Judge Race
From the Belleville News-Democrat
He’s the second Republican to be elected to the bench in Madison County in a century.
St. Jacob lawyer John Barberis, a Republican, beat Associate Judge Clarence Harrison, a Democrat. Barberis received 41,723 votes to Harrison’s 35,114. That vacancy was created by the resignation of Ann Callis, who lost her bid for Congress in the 13th District. Harrison is the son of the late Illinois Supreme Court Justice Moses Harrison.
Barberis, 46, has his own law firm in St. Jacob. In his private practice, he handled criminal and family cases, federal cases, business law and plaintiff personal injury and worker's compensation cases. He recently filed a class-action lawsuit against the county for former treasurer Fred Bathon's handling of the annual delinquent tax sales. He previously worked as a Madison County assistant state's attorney prosecuting child support, traffic and mental health cases. Barberis received his bachelor's degree from Illinois State University and his law degree from Saint Louis University. He is married to Laura. The couple has three children, Jessica, 17, and twins John and Jordan, 12.
Barberis and Harrison could not be reached for comment.
In other judicial races, Steve McGlynn, a Republican who was appointed to the circuit bench by Illinois Supreme Court Justice Karmeier, opposed St. Clair County Associate Judge Heinz Rudolf, a Democrat. The vacancy was created by the resignation of Mike Cook, who resigned after he was arrested on heroin possession and weapons charges. He pleaded guilty earlier this year. With all of St. Clair County precincts and East St. Louis reporting, McGlynn was beating Rudolf by 36,043 to 34,880 votes. Early and absentee votes had not yet been tallied at 12:15 a.m.
As of 11:30 p.m., East St. Louis still had not released any votes. McGlynn wasn’t willing to declare a victory without the East St. Louis returns, but said, “I am proud of our efforts. I am proud of the campaign I ran. I am pleased with how strong a showing we made in the county.”
Read more in our daily News Update...
↧
↧

November 6, 2014

November 6, 2014, 7:42 am
$
0
0
Close, But Karmeier Likely Wins Retention
From the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin
Illinois Supreme Court Justice Lloyd A. Karmeier’s campaign is optimistic he received enough votes Tuesday to stay on the bench. Cautiously optimistic.
In the lone high court retention race this year, a last-minute barrage of negative ads — backed by plaintiff lawyers who believe Karmeier kowtowed to corporate interests — may have taken a toll.
But the unofficial tallies Wednesday show the justice did eclipse the 60 percent threshold he needed to hold his seat, collecting about 60.7 percent approval in the 37 southern Illinois counties that make up the 5th Appellate District.
“I don’t want to take anything for granted, because I just don’t know yet,” said Ron Deedrick, Karmeier’s campaign manager. “But I think I can say with some certainty that we are (at least) at 60.4 percent, but it’s likely north of that.”
Karmeier received 228,142 votes in favor of retention and 147,664 opposing a new term. At that total, he received about 2,600 votes above the minimum needed to keep his job.
A group called Campaign for 2016 raised more than $2 million in an effort to unseat Karmeier, unleashing a spate of TV commercials in the final few weeks of the election that accused him of delivering favorable verdicts for corporations who donated to his 2004 campaign for the high court.
The race 10 years ago set national records for money in a judicial campaign.\
Read more in our daily News Update...
↧

State Supreme Court Justice Appears To Have Narrow Win In Retention Race

November 6, 2014, 7:45 am
$
0
0

From the Chicago Tribune

Illinois Supreme Court Justice Lloyd Karmeier hadn’t declared victory as of Wednesday, but by the slimmest of margins he appears to have staved off a furious, last-minute effort by plaintiffs’ lawyers to unseat him.

A spokesman for Karmeier’s campaign said the judge received 60.6 percent of the vote cast in his 37-county judicial district in southern Illinois, according to the campaign’s unofficial calculations. He needed 60 percent to stay on the court for a second 10-year term.

“We are cautiously optimistic that the justice’s numbers will hold and maybe even increase as provisional, absentee and military ballots are finished being tabulated,” said Ron Deedrick, Karmeier’s campaign manager.

Deedrick later told The Associated Press he’d be unsurprised if Karmeier’s opponents sought a recount or sued over the results.

“It just seems to be sometimes what these parties do,” Deedrick said. “Some parties are just playing out the election from 10 years ago,” when Karmeier first was elected to the high court after a tight race that cost the two candidates more than $9 million, shattering state and national spending records for a judicial seat.

Seeking to bounce Karmeier from the bench, several attorneys and law firms in mid-October launched the “Campaign for 2016” that state records show collected more than $1 million ultimately poured into television commercials, automated calls and mailings that labeled Karmeier too tight with business.

At least $500,000 of those contributions came from two attorneys for the Korein Tillery law firm with offices in St. Louis and Chicago.

Stephen Tillery, a St. Louis-based principle of Korein Tillery, is seeking Karmeier’s recusal from the Supreme Court’s consideration of an appeal of a decade-old $10.1 million class-action verdict against Phillip Morris USA. A lower court ruled in Tillery’s favor over the nation’s biggest cigarette maker’s marketing of “light” and “low tar” designations.

Karmeier was the only judge on the seven-member court who was up for retention. In Illinois, Supreme Court judges are elected to 10-year terms on a partisan ballot and then run on a nonpartisan retention ballot after their initial terms.

View the entire story the Chicago Tribune.

↧

November 7, 2014

November 7, 2014, 5:29 am
$
0
0
Gov.-elect Rauner's Message To Quinn, Legislature: Whoa!
From the Chicago Sun-Times
In his first news conference since Tuesday’s election, Republican Governor-elect Bruce Rauner had a message for the state Legislature:
Do not proceed without me.
Rauner lay down the gauntlet, making clear he believed it would be “very inappropriate” for state lawmakers — or Gov. Pat Quinn — to tackle weighty issues during the lame duck session.
On Tuesday, Rauner became the first Republican headed to the governor’s mansion since former Gov. George Ryan left office in 2003. His swearing-in isn’t until mid-January.
“I hope that there will be no real significant action taken during the lame duck and with a governor on the way out. I hope that anything of significance to be addressed can wait until mid-January so we can all deal with it together on a bipartisan basis,” Rauner said when asked how he planned to tackle an expiring income tax hike that is now helping fill a budget hole.
“Because the impact of major decisions can be so lasting and can have such a dramatic change on the future of the state, to have those decisions made by folks who are on their way out of office, in their last few days in office — that would be very inappropriate.”
Read more in our daily News Update...
↧
↧

November 10, 2014

November 10, 2014, 5:31 am
$
0
0
IL Supreme Court Justice Survives Ballot Attack, But Others Will Be Wary
From the Chicago Tribune
The most ominous outcome in last week's election: A band of big-bucks civil attorneys almost picked off an Illinois Supreme Court justice because they believe he's a threat to their big paydays.
By the barest of margins, voters in Southern Illinois denied the lawyers their trophy. Justice Lloyd Karmeier needed a 60 percent "yes" vote to win a second 10-year term. His unofficial tally was 60.7 percent.
The moral victory goes to Karmeier, a capable and honest judge, and to the voters who didn't fall for the nasty attack ads bankrolled by the trial attorneys. But the multimillion-dollar misinformation campaign sent a chilling message to judges at every level of the court system: If we don't like your rulings, we'll come after you.
Karmeier broke the mold in the plaintiff-friendly 5th Judicial District in 2004, when he defeated then-appellate Judge Gordon Maag for an open seat on the state Supreme Court. The race turned into a referendum on "jackpot justice," with trial attorneys backing Maag, a Democrat, and businesses and tort reform groups supporting Karmeier, a Republican. A record $9.3 million was spent on the race.
The next year, Karmeier joined other members of the Supreme Court in decisions that overturned a $10.1 billion judgment against cigarette maker Philip Morris and a $1.2 billion judgment against State Farm.
Attorneys representing the plaintiffs in those cases raised millions for Campaign for 2016, the committee that tried to oust Karmeier in the Nov. 4 election. But they weren't just trying to punish him for those adverse rulings. They wanted to buy themselves a friendlier Supreme Court.
Read more in our daily News Update...
↧

November 11, 2014

November 11, 2014, 5:14 am
$
0
0
Mark Kirk Set To Head Senate Veterans Panel
From Crain's Chicago Business
U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., a big advocate of veterans rights and a major critic of national health care programs for them, says he's hoping to become chairman of a Senate panel that will help him in those causes. And unless something unusual happens, he should get his heart's desire.
In remarks at a Chicago luncheon today, Mr. Kirk says he'd like to become chairman of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
If he gets it, he said, his top focus will be remedying defects in the care provided by the Veterans Health Administration, particularly in Illinois.
Mr. Kirk already was the ranking GOP member of the panel, which has been chaired by Democrat Tim Johnson of South Dakota. But with Republicans winning control of the Senate in last week's election, the job of chairman typically would pass to Mr. Kirk, assuming he wants it. The retired naval intelligence officer does.
Read more in our daily News Update...
↧

November 12, 2014

November 12, 2014, 5:29 am
$
0
0
Letter: "About Those Votes Against Every Cook County Retention Judge..."
From the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin
On Nov. 5, the day following the Illinois general election, a local newspaper photo featured Governor-elect Bruce Rauner at his polling place holding his completed ballot.
An examination of that photo reveals that Rauner voted “no” for every retention judge in Cook County Circuit Court who was on the ballot. As one of a handful of judges sitting in the circuit court who came to the ballot as a Republican, I am disappointed in Rauner that he would recklessly take that action.
Rauner’s actions are disrespectful to all of the various bar associations who donated thousands of hours of volunteer time to screen each and every one of those judicial candidates for retention.
The results of their efforts culminated in a publication which was printed in the newspapers and made available to the general population to assist and educate the general population as to the quality of the judges sitting on the bench.
As an elected circuit judge for the past 18 years, I was proud of my retention class.
Read more in our daily News Update...
↧
Search

November 13, 2014

November 13, 2014, 6:35 am
$
0
0
Residents' Lawsuit Targets Illinois Fracking Rules
From the Associated Press
A group of Illinois landowners has sued the Department of Natural Resources in a bid to stop the state's new rules for high-volume oil and gas drilling from taking effect, saying the agency violated several rulemaking procedures as it worked to implement a state law to regulate the practice.
The lawsuit filed Monday in Madison County Circuit Court seeks a preliminary injunction, and also names Illinois DNR Director Marc Miller, Gov. Pat Quinn and Secretary of State Jesse White. A hearing is scheduled for next Tuesday, several days after the deadline for the rules to be submitted to White's office for publication.
Among the allegations is that the DNR didn't consider scientific studies in its first rules notice, denying the public a chance to address the specific information the agency relied upon to draft the rules. It also claims there was no agency representative available to answer residents' questions at public hearings, and that some were denied admission to or a chance to speak at the meetings.
"We want a declaration from the court that the DNR failed to follow procedural requirements under law," said Natalie Laczek, one of three attorneys representing the residents. "If IDNR cannot follow requirements in rulemaking, how is it going to be able to regulate permits in the state?"
The DNR issued a statement Wednesday saying the agency "acted in an open and transparent manner throughout the rule making process that resulted in historic levels of participation," and that it responded "thoughtfully" to issues raised by the public.
Read more in our daily News Update...
↧
↧

November 14, 2014

November 14, 2014, 6:16 am
$
0
0
Hinz: Rauner, Top Dems Hold A 'Cordial' Meeting
From Crain's Chicago Business
Illinois' new Republican governor and the Democratic leaders of the General Assembly held their first post-election meeting today and, though details are still a little sketchy, the session went on for almost two and a half hours — a good sign.
The meeting occurred at the downtown Chicago Club and involved Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner, House Speaker Michael Madigan, Senate President John Cullerton and their respective chiefs of staff, with the aides sitting in only for part of the session.
"The speaker thought the meeting was productive," said Steve Brown, Mr. Madigan's spokesman. "There was a general sense of common agreement that the state budget is the biggest problem."
"It was very cordial," said John Patterson, a spokesman for Mr. Cullerton. "Most of it was just getting to know each other."
Mr. Rauner so far has had no comment on the get-together, but according to the Democrats the most specific thing that came up is that he personally asked that lawmakers take up little of substance during the fall veto session that begins next week, when Pat Quinn still will be governor.
Perhaps the biggest potential item is raising the state's minimum wage to $10 an hour, and, on that count, neither leader apparently gave Mr. Rauner what he wanted.
"We're in the process of surveying our members and then we'll see where we are," Mr. Brown said. "We're going to caucus with our members next week and see what they want to do," Mr. Patterson said.
Mr. Rauner has said he favors a hike, but only if it is incorporated with "pro-business" changes in the state's tort reform and workers' compensation systems.
Read more in our daily News Update...
↧

November 17, 2014

November 17, 2014, 7:13 am
$
0
0
Plotting A Hike In Illinois' Minimum Wage
From Crain's Chicago Business
Wealthy trial lawyers could very well end up being the unsung heroes of Illinois residents who earn only the minimum wage.
Why? It's all about leverage.
Ever since GOP candidate Bruce Rauner was caught saying he would cut the state's minimum wage, or even abolish it altogether, he has claimed that he really wants to increase the minimum wage to $10 an hour, but only if it's tied to things like tort reform and an overhaul of the state's workers' compensation program.
Trial lawyers make their money by suing people and corporations, whether it's a doctor who allegedly committed malpractice, a corporation that allegedly polluted a local water supply or a company that employed a worker injured on the job.
The state's legal system has been kind to them. They don't want change. Tort reform and changes to workers' comp would hit them right where it counts—in the wallet.
By a 2-to-1 ratio, voters supported a nonbinding referendum on Election Day that asked: “Shall the minimum wage in Illinois for adults over the age of 18 be raised to $10 per hour by January 1, 2015?”
The day after the election, Gov. Pat Quinn announced that he wanted to make the “will of the people the law of the land” by pushing for a hike in the current minimum wage of $8.25 an hour during the upcoming legislative session.
Gov.-elect Rauner then demanded that the General Assembly avoid all major issues until he's sworn in Jan. 12, particularly the minimum wage proposal. He repeated his plan to use the minimum wage hike as leverage to obtain much-needed business reforms.
And that's why I expect the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association to lobby heavily for a minimum wage increase. Take away Mr. Rauner's leverage and he'll have to bargain using some other super-popular issue. If the trial lawyers succeed, they won't kill his effort to pass business reforms, but they will at least temporarily hobble it and send a powerful message: “Don't trifle with us.”
Democratic Senate President John Cullerton has said he will consult with his members before committing to raising the minimum wage. If passed before Jan. 1, the increase won't take effect until June 1 according to the Illinois Constitution.
His membership is quite liberal, so it's likely they'll want to go forward.
Read more in our daily News Update...
↧

November 18, 2014

November 18, 2014, 7:17 am
$
0
0
Judge Leaves Chicago Bar Association Over Peer’s Rating
From the Chicago Sun-Times
The 1st District Appellate Court’s longest-serving justice has ended his membership in The Chicago Bar Association, citing frustration with how the bar group handled a negative rating of a Cook County judge in this month’s election.
Justice Thomas E. Hoffman, in a letter sent to the CBA on Wednesday, took issue with the CBA Judicial Evaluation Committee’s recommendation to vote against retaining Circuit Judge Thomas E. Flanagan of the Law Division.
Among 73 candidates for judicial retention on the ballot - Hoffman himself included - the CBA only advised voters to vote “no” for Flanagan.
The committee noted that Flanagan, 78, “has had a distinguished judicial career and enjoys a fine reputation for his integrity.”
“However, lawyers who have appeared before Judge Flanagan have expressed concerns about the judge’s ability to make decisions in a timely manner on motions and complex issues and to efficiently and effectively manage a trial call.”
According to unofficial Chicago and Cook County election results as of today, Flanagan won retention by clearing the 60 percent threshold with a 75.05 percent “yes” vote. No retention candidate in Cook County has lost since 1990.
Hoffman was appointed a Cook County associate judge in 1984, the same year Flanagan was elected to the bench as a circuit judge.
“Although I disagree with the committee’s assessment, that alone would not cause me to resign my membership,” Hoffman wrote.
Hoffman took particular issue with the CBA’s advertisements on news and talk radio stations during peak commuting hours.
“That coming from an organization which, to my memory, spent very little of its funds in the past to encourage voters not to retain some judges that clearly shouldn’t have been retained and did very little by way of advertisements in this past election to encourage voters to retain the judges that it found recommended for retention,” Hoffman wrote.
“I am at a loss to understand why the CBA chose to spend its money targeting Judge Flanagan; but, if it repeats this type of misguided priority for the spending [of] its money in the future, it will do so without my dues.”
Read more in our daily News Update...
↧

November 19, 2014

November 19, 2014, 7:18 am
$
0
0
United, Orbitz Sue Travel Site Over 'Hidden City' Ticketing
From Bloomberg
United Airlines Inc. and Orbitz Worldwide LLC sued to prevent the travel website Skiplagged.com from helping consumers buy what the companies call improper “hidden city” plane tickets that undercut their sales.
The companies accused the site’s founder, Aktarer Zaman of New York, of “intentionally and maliciously” interfering with their airline industry business relationships “by promoting prohibited forms of travel,” in their complaint filed today in federal court in Chicago.
Skiplagged helps consumers find cheap airfares by enabling them to book passage on a flight with one or more stops and then deplane before the flight reaches its as-booked final destination.
“In its simplest form, a passenger purchases a ticket from city A to city B to city C but does not travel beyond city B,” according to the companies’ complaint. “‘Hidden City’ ticketing is strictly prohibited by most commercial airlines because of logistical and public-safety concerns.”
Among those concerns, according to the complaint, is United’s resultant inability to estimate flight passenger counts which can cause departure delays and affect fuel load computations.
Read more in our daily News Update...
↧
↧

November 20, 2014

November 20, 2014, 7:43 am
$
0
0
Obama Sets Immigration Rollout For Tonight
From the Wall Street Journal
President Barack Obama will lay out sweeping changes to the immigration system in a speech Thursday night, offering new protections to millions of people in the country illegally and sparking a bitter fight with Republicans.
The executive action is expected to shield as many as five million illegal immigrants from deportation and offer them a chance for work permits, while overhauling the enforcement system and boosting border security, people briefed on the plan said. It would represent the most significant changes to U.S. immigration policy in nearly three decades, though it would fall far short of the comprehensive legislation supporters have been trying to pass since the George W. Bush administration.
GOP reaction was swift and sharply negative, with Republicans saying the president is overstepping his authority, refusing to work with Congress and ignoring the will of voters, who this month delivered the GOP control of both houses of Congress. The White House cast the issue as an urgent policy priority.
“Everybody agrees that our immigration system is broken. Unfortunately, Washington has allowed the problem to fester for too long,” Mr. Obama said in a video released on the White House’s Facebook page Wednesday afternoon. He said he would use his authority to “make the system work better.”
The moves, and the GOP response, will likely extinguish an already dim chance of legislative action on immigration. Republican leaders, buoyed by their Senate win and stronger hold on the House after the midterms, warned that cooperation on other matters would be more difficult, as well.
Read more in our daily News Update...
↧

November 21, 2014

November 21, 2014, 10:27 am
$
0
0
Lawsuit By Nebraska Landowners May Decide Keystone Pipeline’s Fate
From the Wall Street Journal
For all the angst and anger over the Keystone XL pipeline in Washington, the project’s fate may lie here in Nebraska, where disgruntled landowners are challenging a state law that officials used to approve the pipeline’s path through their property.
After the U.S. Senate rejected a measure to approve the project Tuesday, Republicans who will control the chamber in January said it would be one of the first items on their agenda next year. A more immediate hurdle, though, is the Nebraska suit, which encompasses much of the legal and emotional core of the battle over Keystone.
“I worry that members don’t know there is a pending lawsuit that could take this whole thing back to square one in Nebraska,” said Heather Zichal, an energy consultant who was a top energy and climate adviser in the White House until about a year ago.
The Nebraska Supreme Court is expected to rule in the coming weeks on the case. If the court upholds the law, the Obama administration would have a clear path to decide on the project, which has been under federal review for more than six years.
Read more in our daily News Update...
↧
Search

November 24, 2014

November 24, 2014, 10:28 am
$
0
0
Illinois Pension Reform Struck Down
From Crain's Chicago Business
Pension reform is headed sooner rather than later to the Illinois Supreme Court.
Sangamon County Circuit Court Judge John Belz ruled Friday that the state's pension reform law is unconstitutional, setting up an immediate appeal to the state's highest court.
“The state of Illinois made a constitutionally protected promise to its employees concerning their pension benefits," Belz said in his six-page ruling. "Under established and uncontroverted Illinois law, the state of Illinois cannot break this promise.”
While the state lost this round, the constitutional question ultimately has to be resolved by the Illinois Supreme Court. The longer the case takes to get there, the longer state finances remain in limbo and the longer any “Plan B” for pension reform goes undiscussed.
“Seven people will decide this at the end of the day,” said Illinois Sen. Daniel Biss, D-Skokie, one of the principal co-authors of the pension reform law. “It's a victory for the state to get it to the Supreme Court faster. The state suffers from uncertainty. Ultimately what matters most is how we resolve this problem eventually.”
In a statement, the Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office said, "We will ask the (state Supreme) Court to expedite the appeal given the significant impact that a final decision in this case will have on the state's fiscal condition.”
The decision was widely expected, given the state Supreme Court's ruling in Kanerva vs. Weems, a similar case in July testing whether retiree health care benefits can be reduced. The justices ruled that the state constitution's pension protection clause is “aimed at protecting the right to receive the promised retirement benefits, not the adequacy of the funding to pay for them.”
Read more in our daily News Update...
↧

November 25, 2014

November 25, 2014, 7:06 am
$
0
0
Lisa Madigan To Ask Illinois Supreme Court To Consider Pensions
From the Associated Press
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan says the state has a "very strong argument" in favor of its public pension overhaul when the case is appealed to the Supreme Court.
A Sangamon County circuit judge struck down the law as unconstitutional on Friday. Madigan told reporters in Chicago on Monday that she plans an "immediate" appeal and a request that the court quickly take up the case. The law was written to reduce pension benefits to close a $100 billion state pension debt.
State employees successfully argued in local court that the state Constitution prohibits benefit reductions.
The state says it has the power to take extraordinary steps during crises. Madigan says if the high court agrees to an expedited hearing, a ruling could come by January.
Read more in our daily News Update...
↧
↧

December 3, 2014

December 3, 2014, 3:33 pm
$
0
0
Rauner: State Budget Full Of ‘Booby Traps,’ ‘Gimmicks’
From the Springfield State Journal-Register
For the second time in three weeks, Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner warned Tuesday that the state budget is in worse shape than anyone has previously said.
And for the second time in three weeks, Rauner said details of how he will deal with the budget problems will have to wait.
At a Statehouse news conference, Rauner said the spending plan passed by lawmakers last spring is full of “booby traps” that make the budget worse than it appears on paper.
“The deficit is far worse than has been discussed,” Rauner said. “Our financial condition here in Illinois is dire. It is very bad. Worse than has been reported. Worse than has been discussed publicly.”
Rauner laid blame for the budget squarely at the feet of outgoing Gov. Pat Quinn.
“Unfortunately, Gov. Quinn signed a budget that was broken, was not honest. It was a phony budget. It was not even close to balanced,” Rauner said.
The Republican businessman distributed a paper outlining $1.4 billion in additional pressures facing next year’s budget that he said are the result of “gimmicks” used to make the current state budget appear balanced on paper. That is on top of revenue the state expects to lose from the partial expiration of the temporary income tax increase.
According to Rauner’s calculations, the nearly $36 billion budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 did not include money to honor union pay raises, did not include enough money to pay employee health-care claims and assumed an increase in the state’s bill backlog at the end of the year.
Read more in our daily News Update...
↧

Justice Karmeier: ‘Need To Re-think Judicial Retention Process’

December 3, 2014, 3:37 pm
$
0
0

From the Associated Press

An Illinois Supreme Court justice who narrowly fended off a million-dollar campaign to deny him retention said Tuesday that the ordeal merits rethinking how judicial elections are decided.

Illinois State Board of Elections vote totals posted Monday for last month’s elections show Lloyd Karmeier, of southern Illinois’ Washington County, received 60.77 percent of the vote. That passed the 60 percent threshold he needed to keep the seat he won a decade ago after a tight race that cost the two candidates more than $9 million, shattering state and national spending records for a judicial seat.

Karmeier, 74, was sworn in to second 10-year term Monday.

Several attorneys and law firms in the runup to last month’s elections had sought to oust Karmeier from his seat in the district comprised of the 37 southernmost Illinois counties, spending more than $1 million on a multimedia campaign that portrayed the justice as partial to big business.

Karmeier told The Associated Press on Tuesday that requiring judges to get 60 percent of the vote to win retention makes them unfairly vulnerable to influences of special-interest groups bent on unseating them, punctuating “the need for changes” to that process.

In most elections, he said, candidates who amass more than 60 percent of the vote would consider that a convincing victory, though in statewide judicial retention races “60 percent allows the minority to remove an otherwise qualified judge.”

“That fact that you need a 60-percent plurality indicates that a small group could affect the election,” he said, noting he weathered an “overwhelmingly negative campaign no one should be subjected to.”

“Certainly this election gives me some incentive to work with others in the system to look at changes because of the emphasis of an unprecedented amount of money to (unsuccessfully) remove me from office,” he said. “This could happen to any judge.”

Read the entire article from the Associated Press.

↧

Judges, Not Juries, Grant Most Class-Action Payouts

December 3, 2014, 3:40 pm
$
0
0
From ATRA's Darren McKinney
Satisfied and loyal Toyota customer Jonathan Sourbeer rightly sees the absurdity of the tiny sum he received as a class member, in largely meritless litigation against the car maker, when it’s compared with the economy-undermining quarter-billion-dollar wealth transfer from future auto-buyers to plaintiffs lawyers in the case (“A Close Reading of My $20.91 Settlement Check,” op-ed, Nov. 24).
But he’s wrong to assume that “juries - are granting [such] payouts, seemingly thinking that the money will be deducted from a CEO’s paycheck or otherwise conjured without consequences for anyone outside the corporate suite.”
In fact, it is only very rarely that a jury plays any role in a class-action lawsuit. That’s because once plaintiffs lawyers convince judges to certify their class actions, very few corporate defendants are willing to risk potentially catastrophic trial verdicts and instead seek negotiated settlements.
Occasionally, however, when a courageous defendant decides to fight a preposterous class action all the way to trial, common-sense jurors will reward that courage. For instance, in October federal jurors in Ohio took less than three hours to return a defense verdict for Whirlpool in a class action claiming that poorly maintained front-loader washing machines could develop musty odors and thus weren’t quite worth what millions of happy consumers had paid for them. With a Midwestern appreciation for the importance of a thriving manufacturing sector, perhaps, the jury laudably refused to make multimillionaires out of the parasitic lawyers who’d concocted the case.
In recent years the U.S. Supreme Court has raised the bar for certification of class actions, but insurrectionist lower courts continue to ignore those precedents. So until the high court more aggressively and explicitly asserts itself, lower-court judges, more so than juries, will likely keep letting class-action lawyers get rich at everyone else’s expense.
↧
Viewing all 762 articles
Browse latest View live
Search