The Illinois Supreme Court recently reiterated its position that common law retaliatory discharge claims should be treated the same as any other tort claim when it comes to the issue of causation. In Michael v. Precision Alliance Group, LLC, 2014 IL 117376, the state’s high court reaffirmed its prior rulings on the elements of retaliatory discharge, and again declined to apply the burden-shifting framework used for other employment cases to a claim of retaliatory discharge. The Court also drew an important distinction between proving a “causal nexus” for purposes of ...
Password protection may not sustain confidentiality
Passwords aren’t just for email these days. From jumping on a wi-fi network, to making a phone call, to downloading a song, everything electronic now seems under the proverbial lock and key, albeit a digital one. One recent decision from the Delaware Court of Chancery confronted this reality, holding that “merely password protecting” certain information did not constitute “reasonable efforts to protect the confidentiality of that information” and therefore, the information at issue could not be considered a trade ...
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 ...