Federal Civil Practice

The plaintiff and the plaintiff’s attorney filed an appeal seeking relief from a district court order entering sanctions against them for discovery misconduct in a case where plaintiff alleged violation of federal whistleblower protections. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, explaining that under the deference given to trial courts in their decisions regarding discovery sanctions the district court did not err when it dismissed the complaint based on deletion of evidence and attorney misconduct. (ST. EVE and SYKES, concurring)

Plaintiff sought to represent a class of Indiana car owners insured by the defendant whose cars were deemed total losses after collisions. Plaintiff alleged that defendant breached its contractual duty to pay the putative class members the actual cash value of their totaled cars and its alleged duty to calculate actual cash value payments using a particular method or formula. The district court certified a class on the basis that each putative class member could use common evidence to establish that defendant used an unacceptable method for calculating cash value payments. The Seventh Circuit reached a contrary conclusion, finding that a jury would need to consider a host of individual questions to pay each putative class member and that these individual questions overwhelmed any common questions. (SYKES and ROVNER, concurring)

Plaintiff filed a lawsuit against the former director of the Illinois Department of Aging, alleging that defendant deprived plaintiff, and others, of rights guaranteed by Illinois law and the Older Americans Act when defendant unlawfully refused to hold hearings on three administrative petitions filed by plaintiff. The district court dismissed the lawsuit, finding that it was time-barred and failed to state a claim. Plaintiff appealed and the Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding no errors by the district court. (RIPPLE and KOLAR, concurring)

In a case involving a dispute arising out of competing development projects, CenterPoint filed a lawsuit in state court seeking to enjoin an annexation and development agreement entered into by the City of Joliet and East Gate Logistics. The state court granted that request and entered a preliminary injunction that enjoined the parts of the agreement related to certain heavy truck access on a roadway being developed by CenterPoint. After the injunction was entered in state court, East Gate filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the CenterPoint agreement violated federal antitrust laws. CenterPoint objected to the filing, arguing, among other things, that the federal court lacked jurisdiction because the antitrust lawstuit was essentially and appeal of the state court’s injunction. The district court rejected the motion to dismiss but stayed the federal proceedings. The East-Gate parties appealed the stay order and CenterPoint cross-appealed its motion to dismiss. The Seventh Circuit dismissed the appeal, explaining that because the federal antitrust lawsuit will be decided in federal court regardless of the outcome of the state court matter, the appeal was premature. (ROVNER and LEE, concurring)

Plaintiffs, a group of ethanol producers, brought an antitrust action against the defendant alleging that defendant engaged in a scheme to profit by manipulating indexes used to set U.S. ethanol prices. Plaintiffs alleged monopolization, attempted monopolization, and market manipulation in violation of the Sherman Act as well as parallel state law provisions. The district court granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss and plaintiffs appealed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding that the plaintiffs’ theories of liability could not prevail because the complaint was missing an allegation that defendant completed its predatory prices scheme by charging monopoly prices to recoup its losses from below-cost prices, that plaintiffs waived their challenge to the dismissal of the monopolization claim, and that the complaint contained claims not recognized by the Sherman Act. (RIPPLE and LEE, concurring)

Plaintiff brought a lawsuit against defendant in his personal capacity after a company that defendant was the sole member and manager of failed to make contributions to an employee benefit fund that defendant had contracted with. Plaintiff claimed that a personal liability clause in the agreement established that defendant had agreed to be personally bound and the district court granted summary judgment to the plaintiff. The Seventh Circuit reversed, noting that while the personal liability clause was evidence that defendant intended to be personally bound, the fact that he signed the agreement in a representative capacity evinced a contrary intent and, as a result, the dispute could not be resolved by summary judgment. (EASTERBROOK and ST. EVE, concurring)

Plaintiff, a college athlete, filed a lawsuit against the NCAA in which he argued that the defendant had unreasonably restrained trade in violation of the Sherman Act, by restricting student athletes to four seasons of intercollegiate competition per sport. The district court granted plaintiff’s request for a  preliminary injunction and defendant appealed. The Seventh Circuit reversed, finding that the district court should not have granted plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction because plaintiff had not properly defined the relevant market and explaining that even if he had plaintiff’s allegation that he was excluded from the market was not sufficient to show likely anti-competitive effects. (KOLAR, concurring and RIPPLE, dissenting)