Page 7 - Celeste Bott News Today

All three judges on a Seventh Circuit panel Tuesday appeared skeptical of the argument that they should pause sprawling multidistrict litigation over service members' and veterans' injuries allegedly caused by faulty 3M Co. earplugs while a subsidiary's bankruptcy case proceeds.

A Seventh Circuit panel on Friday threw out an illustrator's $3.6 million copyright infringement award and ordered a new damages trial to determine whether more than 30 of her illustrations amount to just two copyrighted compilations of work, chiding a lower court for entering summary judgment "based on the exact record we previously found insufficient."

Attorneys for former Commonwealth Edison employees accused of bribing ex-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan got their chance this week to temper explosive testimony from a key witness who had wired up for the government, pressing him to admit there was "no guarantee" ComEd bills would pass after the utility hired Madigan-backed candidates.

Chicago federal jurors on Tuesday heard a series of secretly recorded conversations between former Commonwealth Edison lobbyists and executives on trial for allegedly bribing former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, in which the defendants described a long history of doing favors for the legislative leader and admitted that some employees hired by the utility at his behest did little to no work.

A Seventh Circuit judge on Monday questioned if the simple change in control that occurred when the Blackstone Group acquired genetic testing company Ancestry.com for $4.7 billion in 2020 was enough to allege a violation of an Illinois law barring the disclosure of genetic testing information without written permission.

A Jenner & Block LLP partner testified this week that he faced at times "relentless" pressure to direct legal work when he was in-house counsel for Commonwealth Edison to an ally of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, and that he found himself raising concerns when the utility sought to hire Madigan associates.

Chicago federal jurors on Thursday heard a wiretap recording of a former Commonwealth Edison lobbyist on trial for bribing ex-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan saying that even though the lobbyist was being paid by ComEd, "my client is the speaker."

Prosecutors told a Chicago federal jury Wednesday that they would hear more than 100 recordings of four former Commonwealth Edison executives and lobbyists describing in their own words an intricate, yearslong scheme to bribe former Illinois Speaker of the House Michael Madigan to advance the utility's legislative agenda.

An Illinois federal judge Wednesday refused to dismiss or send to arbitration a proposed class action accusing an Albertsons subsidiary of collecting and storing employees' voiceprints without securing the informed permission required under Illinois' biometric privacy law.

American Zurich Insurance Co. and the Congress Plaza Hotel in Chicago told a Cook County judge Tuesday they had agreed to end a lawsuit claiming the insurer doesn't have to defend the hotel against claims it unlawfully stored employees' fingerprints, as the underlying biometric privacy litigation has settled.