Page 11 - Celeste Bott News Today

An Illinois federal judge sent the first jury to hear a case under the state's biometric privacy law out of the courtroom Friday in the middle of a BNSF employee's testimony, scolding him for giving multiple nonresponsive answers and at one point telling the witness to "wipe the smirk" from his face.

A BNSF Railway executive testified Thursday that the railroad had the authority to direct a vendor to stop collecting finger scans from truck drivers at its rail yard when it was first sued over alleged biometric privacy violations, but didn't do so for nearly a year.

BNSF Railway can't avoid liability in the first case under Illinois' landmark biometric privacy law to go to trial by pointing to the vendor it hired to scan truck drivers' fingerprints, because the railroad was ultimately calling the shots, an Illinois federal jury heard Tuesday.

An Illinois federal judge on Monday refused to exclude evidence, testimony, or arguments suggesting that BNSF Railway can be held liable under the state's biometric privacy law for actions of third parties at trial next month, saying the law's language is broad enough to encompass entities hiring someone else to obtain biometric data on its behalf.

An Illinois federal jury had sufficient evidence to conclude a former Freeborn & Peters partner engaged in a scheme to defraud his client's creditors, despite a district judge acquitting him of wire fraud following jurors' guilty verdict last year, the federal government told the Seventh Circuit on Tuesday.

A Cook County jury awarded $363 million Monday to an Illinois woman who accused industrial sterilization company Sterigenics of recklessly polluting the Willowbrook, Illinois, community with ethylene oxide for decades, giving her more than she asked for at trial.

A Cook County jury awarded $363 million Monday to an Illinois woman who accused industrial sterilization company Sterigenics of recklessly polluting the Willowbrook, Illinois, community with ethylene oxide for decades, giving her more than she asked for at trial.

A disciplinary panel for Illinois' attorney watchdog has recommended that Professional National Title Network's former in-house counsel be suspended for three years for charging more than $136,000 to himself on the company's credit card and misrepresenting the amount of money he had paid back during the investigation into his misconduct.

Wells Fargo must pay a former Chicago-based senior manager more than $22 million for improperly firing them after they voiced concerns that management was directing workers to falsify customer information and engaging in price-fixing and interest rate collusion, the U.S. Department of Labor announced Thursday.

An Illinois federal judge refused to grant the Chicago Cubs summary judgment on a fan's claims that the baseball club failed to provide enough wheelchair-accessible seats at Wrigley Field as required under the Americans with Disabilities Act, after the Cubs' own filings show the stadium is more than 20 seats short.