Results tagged “lawsuit”

Beyonce is coming back to Chicago but this performance will be in a courtroom, not a concert hall. Chicago songwriter and performer Rickey Allen filed a copyright infringement lawsuit a few years ago about one of his songs, "Cater 2 U" and a Destiny's Child song by the same name. Beyonce's lawyers claim she was "the source" for the Destiny Child's version of the song and she'll likely testify when the trial gets underway in a federal courthouse here next month. [WBBM 780]

Last week, six black students, all males, from Washington University in St. Louis alleged they and some friends were not allowed in to Mother's Night Club and claimed their race as the reason. At the time, the bar claimed the students were in violation of its dress code, including baggy pants. The students turned away alleged that white students with equally or more baggy pants were allowed inside and at one point, one of the denied students, Senior Regis Murayi, switched pants with a student who had been allowed inside and was still denied entry. In an interview with the Tribune, representatives of the bar said other black students had been admitted and pointed out a photo of two of the denied students wearing backwards baseball caps, insisting the caps were associated with gangs and that it was concern over gang violence which led to the denial of entry. Murayi countered, “In and of itself that’s racial in that they automatically assumed that we were a gang."

A lawsuit against Craigslist filed by Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart has been dismissed by federal Judge John Grady. Dart sued the website for enabling prostitution via their "Erotic Services" section. The website has sent removed that section, combining several categories into one labeled "Adult." Judge Grady's reasoning for the dismissal was that the blame for the prostitution didn't sit with Craigslist but rather the site's users who committed the actual crimes. A spokesman indicated Dart is mulling an appeal of the dismissal.

The roller coaster that is the prolonged Block 37 project took a big dip today with the announcement that it's been hit with a foreclosure lawsuit. The suit comes from a group of lenders, headed up by Bank of America. Block 37 developer Joseph Freed & Associates LLC said in a statement, the lawsuit was “a serious breach of trust with the people of the city of Chicago...The suit lacks merit and Joseph Freed & Associates LLC will fight it vigorously."

Naperville attorney W. Brand Bobosky is claiming that he came up with "We Not Me" a recent ad campaign used by Adidas. Bobosky is suing the sportswear company for using his copyrighted slogan in their campaign. The multimillion-dollar advertisements featured NBA star Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics. Bobosky told the Chicago Sun Times that he tried to negotiate a licensing agreement with Adidas after their advertising campaign launched. "They stonewalled me for 11 months" he said.

A former flight attendant on Oprah Winfrey's private jet filed a federal lawsuit Friday, denying allegations she had a sexual encounter on the plane and seeking more than $75,000 in damages, the Tribune reports.

Remember the back-and-forth between Patti Blagojevich and her old boss about whether or not she swiped the company email list for the purposes of pimping husband Rod's book? Well, now Patti is pissed and she's got the lawsuit to prove it. The Sun-Times' Natasha Korecki reports that Patti has filed a defamation lawsuit against Rick Roberts of the Chicago Christian Industrial League for his initial remarks. Lead attorney Jay Edelson said, "Hopefully, this will send the message that making false statements against Patti or Rod Blagojevich will not go unanswered."

We mentioned last week that an off-duty police officer was accused of attacking a CTA bus driver. The bus driver, Ricardo Mendoza, has filed a lawsuit against the city and the officer, Sgt. Thomas O'Grady, for damages over $1 million. WBBM 780 has more information on the story and CBS 2 has the surveillance footage of the attack.

Lesson of the day: if you try and imitate a Chicago hotdog institution, you won’t stand a chance. After months of being tied up in court, Superdawg, a 60-year-old hotdog stand on the Northwest side at Devon and Milwaukee, won a court battle against a New York restaurant called Superdog for rights to its name.

A pair of former Cubs have made the news recently. Here are their strange tales

• At his trial for the Brown's Chicken murders, a high school friend of James Degorski testified today that Degorski admitted committing the murders.
• An Aurora man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for acting as a lookout during a gang-related beating that resulted in the victim's death.
• Some local post offices are under review for possible closings.

Thanks to The Reader's Whet Moser (whose Chicagoland blog should be required reading) for sharing this fantastic video from last night's episode of WTTW's Chicago Tonight. The topic? That IVI-IPO lawsuit against the city for the parking meter fiasco. The entire video - featuring Clint Krislov, who is representing IVI-IPO, The Reader's Mick Dumke, and Ald. Bernard Stone (50th) - is worth your viewing, but if you have no attention span, just roll up to about 11 minutes. Mick, we owe you a beer.

(c) Reports and records of the obligation, receipt and use of public funds of the State, units of local government and school districts are public records available for inspection by the public according to law.

If you've ever skim your email's spam folder before deleting them all forever, maybe you've seen emails about dietary supplements. Well, there's now a chance they're being sued by Oprah. The Great O has filed a federal trademark-infringement suit against dealers (around 40 in all) of dietary supplements and has even lent a hand to state attorney general Lisa Madigan who has filed three similar lawsuits. The problem is that Oprah pal Dr. Oz has given props to acai berries. But - as our spam folders can attest - there are legions of supplements that use acai berries and some have begun using Doc Oz and Oprah to sell their products even though neither O has ever officially endorsed a product. Given some of the scrutiny she's been under lately, we can understand why Oprah is cracking the whip.

• The dispute over the Arie Crown Hebrew Day School expansion in Skokie has raised accusations of antisemitism.
• A Chicago firefighter remains in critical condition. the latest victim in the series of violent Lincoln Park attacks Updated: Police say it is not connected to the recent string of robberies in the neighborhood.
• In another case of sickening violence, a woman was bound and raped Tuesday night in the Logan Square neighborhood.

An interesting slip'n'fall lawsuit against the Brookfield Zoo has been filed. According to the complaint [PDF], the plaintiff slip and fell at Brookfield Zoo's dolphin exhibit last August. Jennifer Fernicola at ChicagoNow's Bar-Tender blog reports:

In 2007, Christopher Connolly was a 15-year old freshman at St. Ignatius practicing with the junior-varsity water polo team when he hit his head on the bottom of the school swimming pool and suffered injuries that left him quadriplegic. On Monday, Connolly’s family sued the school for negligence over the accident which they say resulted from a “hazing incident.” Chicago Breaking News provides the background:

It's looking less and less likely that the city's most expensive hole in the ground will ever become the beautiful butterfly of a spire it was meant to be. Bank of America has filed suit against Shelbourne Development Group Inc., the developers of the Chicago Spire. We're not even going to pretend like we can fully comprehend the ins-and-outs of the financial wrangling going on here - we'll let Bloomberg do that - but given the continual financial difficulties of the buildings, we're guessing the day the Spire opens for business is the day Mayor Daley makes the city government fully transparent.

The Internets. It can be an amazing place full of joy and wonder, but it can also be a dark place. One man is learning the price you play when you mess with that dark side. He's been sued by an ex-girlfriend after he posted nude photos of her on the explicit website Ex Girlfriend Pictures, a website that proclaims its content as, "submitted photos of nude ex-girlfriends and former wives" (and a site we're not going to link here because we'll be damned if we're responsible for anyone getting fired, but if you know how to use Google...). The two - Jessica Voth and Miles Marsh - dated for two-and-a-half years starting in the fall of 2003 when both were students at Lake Forest College. During that time, it seems Marsh, according to the lawsuit [via the Trib], "after continued and repeated requests by Marsh, [Voth] begrudgingly allowed [Marsh] to take intimate and personal photographs of [Voth]."

An uptown woman is being sued by the real estate company that owns her apartment for a defamatory tweet the woman put up on her public Twitter account. Amanda Bonnen allegedly tweeted on May 12, "Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's okay." Now Horizon Group Management says that statement has caused harm to their reputation and they're suing for more than $50,000 in damages. [CBS 2]

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) filed a lawsuit against the CTA yesterday alleging the transit agency was infringing upon their first amendment rights by refusing to display ads for "mature audience" video games. Michael D. Gallagher, CEO of the ESA, said in a statement:

It appears as if Cook County will sue the owners of Burr Oak cemetery in an effort to overtime costs in connection with the ongoing investigation at the graveyard. The county is seeking $326,000. The Sun-Times has more.

It's true, there's a lawsuit that's been filed in Kendall County against the former President of the Philippines and his wife. It's a strange, complicated story and the plaintiffs are seeking $1,964,005,859 in total damages. We'll let WBBM explain the rest to you.

A father filed a lawsuit today after his son fell seven stories to his death down an elevator shaft in an Ames, Iowa apartment building. Ronald Pawlak filed the suit in Cook County Circuit Court, alleging the elevator wasn't "properly inspected or maintained," according to a Chicago Breaking News report. The suit "seeks damages from the elevator company and building management for wrongful death as well as funeral and burial expenses," the report said.

It was only a matter of time. The first of what promises to be many lawsuits related to the Fourth of July bridge collapse near Merrillville, Indiana has been filed. According to Fox 32:

• The B.F. Shaw Printing Co., parent company of the McHenry County-based newspaper Northwest Herald, has sued Cal Skinner Jr. of the McHenry County Blog for damages based on a post Skinner made regarding an alleged loan to the paper, claiming such a loan never happened.
• The City has filed applications for grants that would provide upwards of $106 million meant to hire 400 new police officers. But the grants, good for three years, contain the provision that the officers have to remain on the city payroll for at least one additional year after.
• At yesterday's Pride Parade, Sen. Roland Burris supported civil unions but stopped short of endorsing gay marriage - a view shared by Pres. Barack Obama.

Buffalo Grove's American Needle Inc. is heading to the Supreme Court thanks to a fight with the NFL. The company had been one of many that had previously sued the NFL for violating federal antitrust law when the league signed an exclusive merch licensing deal with Reebok in 2001. American Needle lost its suit and its appeal against the NFL and the league took the case to the Supreme Court hoping to get a more broad ruling against smaller lawsuits, though American Needle has pursued a high court ruling as well. According to the Associated Press, "Football team owners hope the high court will issue a broader decision that would insulate the NFL against what they contend are costly, frivolous antitrust lawsuits." [AP, WBEZ]

The Tribune isn't taking the battle for applicant data in the case of the University of Illinois's clout list lightly. Last week, they ran a list of state legislators complete with statistics on how many students each has helped. Now, they've filed suit against the University for the release of applicant data, including, "the immediate release of grade point averages and standardized test scores of the hundreds of college applicants placed on an internal list of well-connected students." School spokesman Tom Hardy said, "The university believes it has a strong legal case and we are prepared to make it."

We hope former governor Rod Blagojevich had a good time this weekend appearing at the Second City show that mocks him because he's facing even more legal trouble. Four state casinos have banded together to file a $267 million racketeering lawsuit against Blago for a 2006 law that forced the state's top four casinos to direct three percent of the earnings to the horse-track industry. The Wall Street Journal has the details.

• Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan filed suit today against Crestwood mayor Robert Stranczek and his father for lying to the state and their community over tainted cancer-causing water coming from a nearby well.
• The Sun-Times has the story of Mark Clements, a man convicted of four arson-related deaths from a 1981 incident, and his appeal for a new trial.
• There's trouble in Cicero where town president Larry Dominick has been accused of sexual assault and harassment by four former female employees.