Federal Civil Practice

Plaintiff filed an action asking the federal court to intervene in an eminent domain action proceeding in state court, and requesting that the federal court enjoin the state court proceedings and award damages for alleged constitutional and federal law violations. The district court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim and plaintiff appealed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, explaining that the plaintiffs claims had been raised in the state court condemnation proceedings and that they could not relitigate them as “thinly disguised” federal claims. (KIRSCH and KOLAR, concurring)

Plaintiffs, a group of consumers, filed arbitration claims before the American Arbitration Association alleging that defendants, through their electronic devices, unlawfully collected and stored biometric data in violation of Illinois law. Defendant refused to pay the administrative filing fees and the AAA terminated the arbitration proceedings. The plaintiffs then filed a petition to compel arbitration in federal court and the district court ordered defendant to pay the associated arbitration filing fee. Defendant appealed and the Seventh Circuit reversed, finding that the plaintiffs failed to meet their evidentiary burden in proving the existence of an arbitration agreement and noting that because the parties’ alleged agreement incorporated AAA’s rules and procedures, the AAA had substantial discretion over resolving fee disputes. (EASTERBROOK and SYKES, concurring)

Plaintiff’s law firm appealed from a district court order declining to award the firm’s requested attorneys fees in an underlying disability matter. The district court had disregarded a contingency fee agreement signed by the plaintiff and reduced the requested fees by 60 percent, finding that the full amount of the fees was prohibited by the statute as a “windfall” to the law firm. The Seventh Circuit vacated the district court’s order and remanded for further proceedings, finding that the district court abused its discretion when it did not first consider the language of the contingency fee agreement before considering the reasonableness of the request.

Plaintiff brought a lawsuit and proposed collective action alleging that she and her co-workers were wrongly denied overtime pay pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act. Defendant filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that plaintiff had signed an arbitration agreement and the district court did not have jurisdiction over the matter. The district court granted the motion over plaintiff’s objection that defendant had waived its argument. The Seventh Circuit reversed, explaining that while defendant did not waive its arguments relating to the arbitration agreement the federal court nonetheless had jurisdiction because the arbitration agreement was governed by the Federal Arbitration Act. The Seventh Circuit left the question of whether the case could pursue as a collective action for another day. (BRENNAN and PRYOR, concurring)

The plaintiff obtained a default judgment against the defendant arising out of an injury to a worker at a construction site. Plaintiff attempted to collect the judgment by adding an insurance company to the action as a garnishee using Illinois state law and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The district court, however, dismissed the matter by finding that adjudicating the scope of coverage under the applicable insurance policy was outside of its subject matter jurisdiction because it was factually and legally distinct from the underlying lawsuit. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, explaining that under federal ancillary jurisdiction, proceedings collateral to an underlying lawsuit must be sufficiently related to the facts and legal issues of the original action and that attempting to adjudicate new issues of liability against new parties fell outside the scope of ancillary enforcement jurisdiction. The appellate court noted that in order to resolve the dispute in a federal forum the plaintiff was required to file a new civil action. (BRENNAN and KIRSCH, concurring)

Plaintiff filed an application with the State Department for a waiver of a waiting period to apply for a visa. After his application had been pending for more than a year, plaintiff filed a lawsuit in district court seeking an order directing the agency to render a decision. The district court, however, dismissed the complaint for lack of jurisdiction. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding that judicial review was precluded by the applicable language of the federal statutes and that there was no authority for the court to order the executive branch to process a visa waiver application within a specific period of time. (BRENNAN and SCUDDER, concurring)

The Seventh Circuit dismissed an appeal filed on behalf of the plaintiff, an LLC, after finding that the notice of appeal was signed by an individual who was not an attorney and, thus, could not represent any entity other than himself individually. The Seventh Circuit was not persuaded by plaintiff’s argument that under Illinois corporate law any person may represent a corporation, noting that an LLC is not a corporation, the statutory references cited by the plaintiff did not “supersede the norm” that a member of the bar is required to represent a corporation in court, and that federal rules govern the procedures for litigation in federal court and under those rules only a member of the court’s bar can represent another person or entity in litigation. The Seventh Circuit also urged all lawyers to follow the court’s handbook regarding the use of typography. (BRENNAN and SCUDDER, concurring)