Lubin Austermuehle, P.C.

The lawyers at Lubin Austermuehle, P.C. handle all types of internal disputes that may take shape during the course of a company’s formation, management, or dissolution. When it comes to managing a family business, for example, complications may arise that are perhaps unforeseeable. For instance, when spouses who co-own a company decide to divorce, the entity’s value as well as who retains ownership and managing responsibilities must be determined either through negotiations leading to an agreement or by a judge in court.

Website: https://www.chicagobusinesslitigationlawyerblog.com/
Follow:

Lubin Austermuehle, P.C. Blogs

Chicago Business Litigation Lawyer Blog

Blog Authors

Patrick Austermuehle
Peter S. Lubin

Latest from Lubin Austermuehle, P.C.

A Cook County judge recently granted final approval to a $25 million class-action settlement to end a sweeping class-action lawsuit accusing well-known HR technology and service company, ADP, of violating the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) in the way it supplied equipment and support to employers requiring employees to scan their fingerprints when punching the clock at work. According to class counsel, more than 40,000 people filed claims under the settlement. According to the terms of the settlement, these individuals will receive a prorated portion of the settlement fund equal to about $375 each. The judge approved an award…
Fleas and ticks can carry Lyme disease, making them dangerous, and even potentially fatal, to us all, but especially to dogs who spend a lot of time outside and in whose fur fleas and ticks like to burrow. But when it comes to a certain flea and tick collar, could the protection against fleas and ticks be worse than the dangers posed by the bugs themselves? Elanco Animal Health is an Indiana-based pharmaceutical company that makes medications and vaccines for animals, including Seresto flea and tick collars. After almost 1,700 incidents of pet deaths and about 900 humans harmed, all…
Donald J. Trump is no stranger to lawsuits. He has been sued for everything from alleged shady business practices to alleged sexual assault and harassment, but while he was president, he claimed, as have other Presidents, he was protected from legal action as long as he was in office. Two courts had ruled against that argument, and he had appealed their decision to the New York State Court of Appeals, but before that court could decide on the case, Mr. Trump was voted out of office. While Mr. Trump is currently facing multiple lawsuits across the country, the case in…
The Supreme Court recently issued a major ruling in a dispute over free speech on the grounds of a public college. By a vote of 8-1, with Chief Justice Roberts as the lone dissenter, the Court held that a Georgia student’s claims of violations of his First Amendment rights against college officials were not mooted by the school’s decision to abandon the speech restrictions at issue. Specifically, the Court found that the student had standing to proceed with his First Amendment lawsuit even though the student was only seeking nominal damages in the suit. The case had long been on…
The right to free speech is the very first Amendment to our Constitution, and it’s one of the most frequently cited amendments, especially when things get heated between two individuals or political parties. The right to free speech, specifically as it relates to public figures, was promised by our founding fathers as a way to protect our democracy. The idea is that free speech encourages an open debate and exchange of information and ideas about candidates before people head to the polls, but is there a difference between what’s legal and what’s ethical? Because of the importance of being able…
Insurance company State Farm is breathing a little easier after a Cook County judge recently dismissed a putative class action lawsuit filed against the insurer by the owner of an Evanston restaurant over the insurer’s denial of loss of income claims. In the complaint, the restaurant alleged that it and other restaurants suffered hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost income, resulting from state-ordered closures in response to COVID-19. The restaurant alleges that it filed a business interruption claim with State Farm who denied coverage. Following denial of the claim, the restaurant filed suit against the insurer. In response, State…
“March Madness” is a popular term used to refer to the basketball tournament run by the National College Athletic Association (N.C.A.A.) every year in March, but it’s not an accident that everyone thinks of college basketball when they think of March Madness. It’s the result of the N.C.A.A. having trademarked the name, along with strategic branding, and they are very proactive about protecting that brand, even if it means suing a urology practice over the phrase “Vasectomy Mayhem”. The urology practice, Virginia Urology, registered the term “Vasectomy Mayhem” with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and proceeded to launch an…
Can Illinois employers fire employees for their political speech or affiliations? The events of the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots along with the riots and protests across the country throughout the summer of 2020 have led many employers to ask similar questions. And as protests become more commonplace and political debates run rampant on social media, employers and employees alike will be seeking answers to this question more and more frequently as time passes. As with most questions in employment law, the answer depends on the circumstances. Generally speaking, Illinois, as an “at will” state, is more likely to permit…
Recently a federal judge in the Eastern District of Texas ruled that copyright infringement claims filed by retired professional wrestler Booker T. Huffman (known as Booker T) against Activision, the developer of the Call of Duty video games, should proceed to trial. The infringement claims revolve around alleged similarities between promotional artwork for the Call of Duty 4 video game and a poster depicting Huffman’s in-ring persona G.I. Bro. In 2015, Huffman commissioned a poster from the artist, Erwin Arroza, to promote his comic, G.I. Bro and the Dragon of Death. The comic stars a “special operations hero called G.I.…
A scandal at a university’s innocence project led to a defamation suit by one of the project’s former employees against a writer of a book and documentary filmmakers who accused the employee of engaging in criminal behavior in pursuit of a false murder confession. The employee’s defamation claims were initially found to be untimely by the trial court, but the Illinois appellate court reversed the decision. The Illinois Supreme Court took up the appeal of the filmmaker’s and affirmed the decision of the appellate court, finding that each new showing of the documentary film to a limited audience retriggered the…
As we have previously written about here, here, and here, the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) has generated some high profile litigation in recent years. The Illinois Supreme Court’s last opportunity to consider one of the country’s most protective laws concerning biometric data came in 2019 in its decision in Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corporation, which we wrote about here. Recently, the Illinois Supreme Court has granted permission to appeal another potentially impactful decision interpreting BIPA. BIPA was enacted in 2008 to help regulate the collection, use, safeguarding, handling, storage, retention, and destruction of…
By now, we’ve all gotten used to hearing stories of high-level executives of huge corporations getting fired for misconduct, and while some people might be glad to see some signs of accountability, it’s usually bittersweet when it gets announced that they received a severance package worth tens of millions of dollars. But now McDonald’s is suing their former CEO, Steve Easterbrook, to return the $37 million he was paid as part of his severance package, claiming his misconduct was more extensive than they realized at the time they negotiated his severance package. Easterbrook was removed as CEO back in November…
Until recently, falsely accusing someone of being gay was considered defamatory per se in New York. Recently however, a New York appellate court broke with decades of precedent in ruling that such a statement no longer constitutes defamation per se. In so ruling the court cited recent transformations in the law and cultural attitudes towards homosexuality as justification for changing the standard as it relates to accusations of being gay. Defamatory statements fall into one of two distinct categories: defamation per se and defamation per quod. When a statement is considered to be defamatory per se, it is considered…
The longstanding one-year statute of limitations for defamation actions in Illinois could be on its way out. The Illinois Supreme Court has agreed to weigh in on the question of whether the deadline for filing libel lawsuits needs to be revisited to account for the explosion of online content in the twenty-first century. Defamation and libel attorneys throughout Illinois will be eagerly following this case as it presents potentially the largest change to defamation law in recent memory. On January 14, the Illinois Supreme Court heard arguments in a defamation case brought by Paul J. Ciolino, a private investigator at…
There are countless stories of a rock band’s members fighting over music and money, but this time it’s the widow of a band’s recently deceased member who’s fighting with the remaining members of the band over the band’s value. When the singer Chris Cornell died, his widow, Vicky Cornell, inherited his share of the interest in the band, Soundgarden. The other members have offered to buy Cornell’s share for $278,000, but she alleges that amount represents just a fraction of what her share in the band is worth. Cornell is suing the remaining members of Soundgarden for allegedly devaluing her…
A company that provided administrative and payroll services was acquired by a bank under a stock purchase agreement. The agreement provided for the escrow of $2 million dollars, that was to be released to the sellers after a period of time had passed after the sale. Several months after the sale, a former employee came forward to reveal potentially fraudulent practices on the part of the administrative company. After an investigation by an outside law firm, the bank demanded indemnification from the sellers, but the sellers refused. The bank then sued in an attempt to recover money it had paid…