Federal Civil Practice

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)

Plaintiff filed a lawsuit under the federal interpleader statute seeking to join claimants from three different states who sought to invoke the citizen-suit enforcement provision of the Texas Heartbeat Act against the plaintiff. Plaintiff also sought declaratory relief and asked the district court to declare the Texas law unconstitutional. The district court dismissed the lawsuit, concluding the existence of parallel state-court proceedings justified abstention. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, although on different grounds, finding that while the district court had jurisdiction over the interpleader action the case nonetheless belonged in state court as it could not find justification for federal court intervention in the matter. (SYKES and KIRSCH, concurring)

Plaintiff filed a lawsuit against the defendant, a South Korean manufacturer, after a battery manufactured by defendant exploded in the plaintiff’s pocket and injured him. The district court granted defendant’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and plaintiff appealed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding that while the defendant sold its products for use as a component in consumer products and had purposely availed itself of the Indiana forum through an end-product stream of commerce, there was a disconnect between the defendant’s contacts with the forum and the lawsuit, which resulted from a consumer purchase of a derivative product. The appellate court explained that the disconnect foreclosed the federal court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction. (SYKES and LEE, concurring)

Plaintiff filed a lawsuit against his employer alleging that the employer retaliated against him in violation of the first amendment. Plaintiff alleged that he was passed over for a promotion because he criticized the sheriff while running against him in the county sheriff election. The district court granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss on the grounds that plaintiff did not file his claim within the statue of limitations. Plaintiff then requested that the district court set aside its judgment and allow him to amend his complaint. The district court denied leave to amend and plaintiff appealed. The Seventh Circuit reversed, finding that the district court mistakenly applied a heightened standard to plaintiff’s FRCP 59(e) motion to amend and that the district court erred when it denied plaintiff’s request for leave to amend. (BRENNAN and KOLAR, concurring)

Plaintiff appealed from the district court’s entry of sanctions against him for filing frivolous motions, arguing that the district court violated his right to due process because it did not notify him of the potential sanctions or give him the opportunity to respond before entry of sanctions. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding that plaintiff was given fair notice and had multiple opportunities to explain his perspective and to avoid abusing the judicial process. (ST. EVE and KOLAR, concurring)

Plaintiffs, a group of nine named plaintiffs, filed a putative class action lawsuit against the Cook County Sheriff under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in which they sought damages for constitutional violations stemming from the jail’s policy of destroying inmate’s government-issued identification cards if left unclaimed in jail storage after the inmate is transferred to the Illinois Department of Collections. The district court granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss and plaintiffs appealed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding that plaintiffs’ claims were foreclosed by prior precedent and that plaintiffs had not established inadequacy of state remedies. (SYKES and BRENNAN, concurring)

Plaintiff, a former public school counselor, filed a lawsuit alleging that she was unlawfully fired in retaliation for exercising her First Amendment right to speech after the school district concluded that a profanity-laden speech denouncing transgender individuals plaintiff gave at a rally violated several employment policies, including rules against abusive and intimidating language and bullying. The district court concluded that the school district’s interests as a public employer outweighed plaintiff’s free speech rights and dismissed the claim. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding that while plaintiff spoke in a traditional free-speech setting, the school district reasonably concluded that her speech was incompatible with her role as a school counselor. (RIPPLE and ROVNER, concurring)

In a successive appeal, a class member objected to the district court’s award of attorney fees. The Seventh Circuit found the district court’s fee analysis was thorough and that the sole error, in which the district court included a handful of “skewed” fee awards when recreating the market for legal services, could easily be removed from the calculation so that Seventh Circuit affirmed the award as modified. (SYKES and PRYOR, concurring)

Plaintiff filed a lawsuit against his former employer alleging violations of the Family and Medical Leave Act. In a prior appeal, the appellate court affirmed summary judgment in favor of the defendant on most of the allegations contained in the complaint but reversed and remanded for a trial on plaintiff’s FMLA interference claim. A jury found in favor of the plaintiff but the district court granted the defendant’s motion for judgment as a matter of law or, in the alternative, conditionally granted a new trial and plaintiff appealed. The Seventh Circuit reversed the district court’s entry of judgment as a matter of law, finding that the grounds underlying the motion were not properly presented before the verdict; however, the Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s alternative decision granting a new trial. (RIPPLE and SCUDDER, concurring)

In a civil contempt proceeding arising out of a bankruptcy matter, the Seventh Circuit considered the appropriate remedies where the bankruptcy court found that a creditor violated the court’s discharge order and that this violation resulted in the debtor being arrested for a failure appear at a hearing on the creditor’s collection action. The bankruptcy court allocated half the liability for the debtor’s lost wages and emotional distress as well as for reasonable attorney’s fees that the debtor incurred in prosecuting the contempt proceeding to each party. The Seventh Circuit vacated in part, explaining that the bankruptcy court did not recognize that different principles applied to compensatory damages and to attorney’s fees awards and remanded for the bankruptcy court to determine whether to reduce the creditor’s liability for attorney’s fees based on the actions of the debtor. The Seventh Circuit also noted that it would leave it to the bankruptcy court on remand to set a deadline for the filing of a bill of costs. (BRENNAN, concurring and ROVNER, specially concurring)