While the internal documents Elon Musk dumped onto Twitter turned out not to have been the smoking gun on Hunter Biden that Republicans had been hoping for, it did contain some information on Representative Adam Schiff that might lead to legal action.
According to the documents, Schiff lobbied Twitter to get a journalist, Paul Sperry, banned from the social media site back in the fall of 2020 during the first impeachment of President Trump. Sperry is a senior reporter for RealClearInvestigations.com and a columnist for the New York Post. He told Fox News that he was targeted by Schiff for…
Continue Reading Reporter Says He Is Considering a Defamation Lawsuit Against Adam Schiff

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) imposes liability for calling or texting cellular phone numbers using an Automatic Telephone Dialing System (ATDS) without sufficient prior express consent. The TCPA defines an ATDS as “equipment which has the capacity (A) to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator; and (B) to dial such numbers.” The TCPA creates a private cause of action and allows a plaintiff to recover statutory penalties of $500 per call or text in violation, or up to $1,500 for a knowing or willful violation. These statutory penalties have made…
Continue Reading Federal Appeals Court Narrows Meaning of “Automatic Telephone Dialing System” Under Telephone Consumer Protection Act

Under the new federal “Speak Out Act,” employers will no longer be able to enforce pre-dispute non-disclosure and non-disparagement clauses to disputes involving sexual assault and sexual harassment claims. The new law, which passed with bipartisan support in Congress, was signed into law by President Biden on December 7. The new law took effect immediately.
The goal of the new law is to prevent the practice of using pre-dispute agreements to silence employees from reporting sexual impropriety in the workplace. Employers’ use of non-disparagement agreements (NDAs) to keep employees’ sexual harassment claims quiet came under scrutiny during the #MeToo movement.
Continue Reading New Federal Law Limits Employers’ Use of NDAs for Sexual Harassment Claims

An Illinois appellate court recently held that a former employee could not maintain his defamation claims against his former employer concerning statements about him allegedly made by certain executives and high-ranking employees of his former employer. The court found that the allegedly defamatory statements were protected by qualified privilege which the plaintiff had not presented evidence sufficient to overcome.
Plaintiff Michael Briggs was employed by SMG Food & Beverage, a company that provided food and catering service at McCormick Place. Briggs was employed by SMG as a banquet captain, and his duties entailed access to various parts of McCormick Place.
Continue Reading Illinois Appellate Court Affirms Dismissal of Defamation Claims against Beverage Company Brought by Former Employee

Every business owner knows the importance of online reviews. You might love them or hate them, but there’s no denying that they have a very real effect on your business. One of the first things people look at when investigating a business online is the number and rating of the reviews the business has received.
Managing online reviews can be tricky for any business owner, but navigating businesses that seem legitimate when they’re really posting their own positive reviews is an equally treacherous minefield for customers.
Researching the person or company providing your services is never more important than when…
Continue Reading Plastic Surgeon Allegedly Used Deceptive Business Practices to Manipulate Reviews

When a vehicle is totaled in an accident, it doesn’t always go straight to the scrap heap. Some totaled vehicles, although worth less than their insurance coverage, are still reparable. As long as they can be repaired and pass safety inspections, they can be resold. When totaled vehicles are resold without meeting these requirements, that’s when the resellers run into trouble, as three car dealerships in Pennsylvania recently discovered.
According to a recent lawsuit filed by Pennsylvania’s Attorney General, three car dealerships, all located in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, conspired with each other to sell totaled vehicles while lying about the status…
Continue Reading Pennsylvania Car Dealerships Allegedly Sold Totaled Cars without the Proper Repairs

Companies forcing their employees and buyers into arbitration to resolve any dispute has become an increasingly big problem for both consumers and employees. It prevents many complaints from ever getting resolved if the arbitration costs more than the complaint, and it prevents plaintiffs from combining many small complaints into one big action against a corporation to justify the costs of pursuing legal action. Arbitration also prevents many individuals from getting a fair hearing when going up against a big corporation hiring an arbitrator who wants to remain on good terms with a client who brings them a lot of business.
Continue Reading New Jersey Car Dealerships Settle Fraud Allegations for $400,000

Most people buy their cars from car dealerships, but Tesla sells its cars directly to consumers, claiming to cut out the middle person and allegedly save its customers money in the process. Tesla claims it uses this system to benefit consumers, but a closer look at the contract it requires its buyers to sign may tell a slightly different story.
Tesla’s buyer contract includes an arbitration clause. That means any buyer that wants to sue Tesla, for any reason, is required to go through arbitration, rather than the courts, to pursue their claim against the electric car company.
The contract…
Continue Reading Tesla’s Arbitration Clauses Might Come Back to Haunt the Car Company

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently published a proposed rule that, if implemented, would update the labeling standards that food products must meet in order to be labeled as “healthy.” The FDA first established a definition for “healthy” in 1994, and at that time nutrition science and federal dietary guidance focused more on the individual nutrients contained in food. According to the FDA, the proposed rule would “align the definition of ‘healthy’ with current nutrition science, the updated Nutrition Facts label and the current Dietary Guidelines for Americans,” with the goal of assisting consumers to increase their consumption of…
Continue Reading Deceptive Labeling Class-Action Alert: FDA Proposes Updated “Healthy” Food Label Standard

Sex trafficking requires more than one person to be involved in the process. So it should come as no surprise that the allegations against Jeffrey Epstein for sex trafficking didn’t stop with Epstein. His wife, Ghislaine Maxwell, was also found guilty of child sex trafficking and other crimes in connection with the abuse she and her husband committed on an ongoing basis.
Epstein and Maxwell were both very well-connected people, so it’s no wonder that people have speculated as to who knew about the sex trafficking before Epstein was arrested and the public became aware of his crimes. The horror…
Continue Reading Banks Accused of Funding Epstein’s Sex Trafficking

When Stephen Easterbrook was first fired from his position as CEO of McDonald’s, the firing was listed as “without cause,” which allowed Easterbrook to keep his severance pay, including shares in the company. But that was before McDonald’s found out about the extent of Easterbrook’s alleged misconduct.
At the time he was fired, Easterbrook allegedly denied having any inappropriate relationships with any of his employees, except for one relationship, which he claimed had not been physical. Afterwards, an internal investigation found emails that allegedly revealed Easterbrook’s sexual relationships with multiple McDonald’s employees during his time as CEO. Once these emails…
Continue Reading Former McDonald’s CEO Charged with Lying to Investors

Acquiring, repairing, and maintaining classic cars isn’t easy. And when something is not easy to do, it’s often expensive. As a result, people aren’t likely to buy classic cars unless they have the money to pay for rare materials and specialized services. Unfortunately, when a lot of money is involved, fraud is usually not too far away.
William Oesterle found this out the hard way in 2011 when they bought a 1955 Austin Healey Model 100S car for $630,000. The Healey Werks Corp allegedly agreed to restore the vehicle before delivering it to Oesterle.
In 2013, Oesterle bought another car…
Continue Reading Car Dealer Fraud Lawyers in Chicago — Consumer Fraud Lawsuit Involving Classic Cars Settles for $7.1 Million

In a complicated trade secret misappropriation case involving an evolving cast of characters, United States First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of trade secret misappropriation claims between former drug development partners. However, the First Circuit found that the district court abused its discretion by denying the plaintiff’s motion to file an amended complaint and consequently vacated the dismissal of trade secret claims against one of the defendant’s U.S. affiliate. In doing so, the Court was forced to explore the often misunderstood “narrow exception” to Rule 54(b)’s finality rule.
The plaintiff, Amyndas, is a Greek biotechnology firm that researches…
Continue Reading Federal Appellate Court Explores Narrow Exception to Rule 54(b)’s Finality Rule in Trade Secrets Misappropriation Case