Federal Civil Practice

Dist. Ct. did not err in dismissing plaintiff's action for failure to establish existence of any damages, where plaintiff alleged defendant's ordinance improperly requiring it to obtain permit to sell magazines on streets adjacent to Wrigley Field. During pendency of action, defendant amended ordinance to eliminate plaintiff's requirement to obtain said permit, and while plaintiff alleged that it was entitled to receive damages to compensate it for injuries prior to defendant's amendment of ordinance, plaintiff, as business entity, could not assert any emotional damages as claimed by plaintiff, where: (1) entity cannot experience any emotional damages on its own; and (2) any alleged damages were attributed only to plaintiff's owner. Also, plaintiff could not receive compensation for time spent by its owner in researching details regarding compliance with original ordinance, where: (1) owner was already paid full-time salary to perform work on plaintiff's behalf; and (2) plaintiff failed to show existence of some other marginal expense connected to litigating instant case. Moreover, plaintiff could not assert any legal fees, where plaintiff had failed to file any affidavit regarding legal expenses incurred in effort to comply with original ordinance.

Dist. Ct. did not err in granting defendant-prison official's motion for summary judgment in plaintiff-prisoner's section 1983 action alleging that defendant was deliberately indifferent to his medical needs. Plaintiff generally cannot  rely on allegations or denials in his complaint, when filing affidavit opposing properly supported motion for summary judgment, especially where, as here, plaintiff is represented by counsel and has engaged in significant discovery. Also, Dist. Ct. could properly invoke sham-affidavit rule to disregard plaintiff's affidavit, where it merely recited allegations in his amended complaint, and where plaintiff's affidavit had contradicted major points in plaintiff's prior deposition testimony. Moreover, while Dist. Ct. improperly excluded affidavit submitted by defendant's mother, who had not made prior conflicting sworn statement, any error was harmless, where substance of mother's affidavit added nothing of importance to case. As to merits of plaintiff's claim, record did not factually support claim that defendant had unreasonably delayed plaintiff's receipt of antibiotics or additional pain medication.

Dist. Ct. erred in finding that plaintiff-class representative lacked Article III standing to pursue claim under section 15(b) of Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), alleging that defendant failed to make disclosures regarding retention of biometric fingerprint identification information, under circumstances where defendant had removed instant case to federal court under Class Action Fairness Act. While Dist. Ct. granted plaintiff's motion to remand case back to state court for lack of federal Article III standing to pursue her case, because, in its view, violations of BIPA were bare procedural violations that caused no concrete harm to plaintiff, Ct. of Appeals found that plaintiff had Article III standing to pursue alleged section 15(b) violations, because said violations concerned invasion of personal rights that is both concrete and particularized as to plaintiff. As such, remand to state court was in error, since case could proceed in federal court.  However, plaintiff lacked Article III standing to proceed on her section 15(a) of BIPA claim, alleging that defendant failed to make public any guidelines for permanently destroying biometric identifiers it was storing, since: (1) said duty to disclose under section 15(a) was owed to public generally and not to particular person whose biometric information defendant had collected; and (2) plaintiff failed to allege particularized harm with respect to any section 15(a) violation.

Dist. Ct. did not err in granting on res judicata grounds defendant's motion to dismiss plaintiff's lawsuit, alleging action based on defendant's liquidation of plaintiff's trading account, where plaintiff had failed to meet margin calls, since: (1) defendant had prevailed in prior lawsuit seeking payment from plaintiiff on margin calls based on same transactions, where defendant had accepted plaintiff's Rule 68 offer of judgment to resolve case; and (2) Illinois gives consent judgments claim-preclusion effect if, as here, preclusion otherwise applies. Moreover, Ct. of Appeals held that sanctions may potentially be imposed on plaintiff, where: (1) plaintiff never paid on its Rule 68 offer of judgment in defendant's prior action against it; (2) plaintiff abandoned on appeal its theory advanced in Dist. Ct. that state law was irrelevant on issue as to whether accepted Rule 68 offer of judgment was "final judgment on merits" for purposes of applying res judicata; (3) plaintiff ignored/misrepresented controlling precedent on said issue; and (4) record suggested that plaintiff never intended to pay on its Rule 68 offer of judgment and instead filed instant lawsuit claiming $25 million, and then filed instant appeal of adverse ruling in effort to obtain bargaining chip with respect to defendant's prior judgment.

Dist. Ct. did not err in denying plaintiff-prisoner's motion "for leave to represent himself" (after Dist. Ct. had recruited counsel for plaintiff) in plaintiff's section 1983 action alleging that defendants-prison officials were deliberately indifferent to plaintiff's serious dental problems. Under 28 USC section 1654, party seeking to assert his statutory right of self-representation must clearly and unequivocally discharge any lawyer previously retained, and plaintiff in instant motion conditioned his request to represent himself on whether Dist. Ct. was persuaded by brief filed by plaintiff's counsel that had been submitted in response to defendant's pending summary judgment motion. As such, Dist. Ct. properly denied plaintiff's motion because it was not unequivocal request for self-representation.

In action under section 43 of Lanham Act, Dist. Ct. did not err in denying plaintiff-beer manufacturer's request for injunction to prevent defendant-rival beer manufacturer from misleading consumers by saying that plaintiff's beer "contains corn syrup." Plaintiff identified corn syrup as one ingredient of its beer, and some of plaintiff's own managers acknowledged that its beer "contains" what is on its ingredients list. Accordingly, where word such as "ingredient" has multiple potential meanings, plaintiff cannot enjoin defendant's statements about presence of corn syrup, since it is neither "false" nor "misleading" for seller to say or imply of business rival something that rival says about itself.

Dist. Ct. erred in dismissing for failure to exhaust administrative remedies plaintiff-prisoner's section 1983 action alleging that defendant-prison medical provider was deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs, when it failed to approve surgery to remove cataracts in one of plaintiff's eyes, where defendant had policy to refuse such surgery when inmate had some visual acuity in other eye. While Dist. Ct. based dismissal upon its finding that plaintiff did not file standard grievance after his two prior grievances had been denied emergency status, plaintiff had done enough to exhaust his administrative remedies, even without resubmission of  his grievance, since relevant rules prior to 2017 Amendment did not instruct that inmates filing emergency grievances need to formally resubmit their complaints as ordinary grievances if warden concluded that they did not present emergency.

Dist. Ct. did not err in entering permanent injunction precluding enforcement of U.S. Attorney General's conditions for plaintiff's receipt of federal Byrne JAG grant monies earmarked for local law enforcement to help fight crime, where said conditions required local authorities' cooperation with federal authorities seeking federal immigration enforcement in terms of: (1) providing federal agents with advance notice of alien's scheduled release date and time from custody; (2) providing federal agents with access to aliens in custody; (3) certifying that local authorities did not prohibit their agents from communicating said information to I.N.S. or that local authorities did not have in effect any law/rule that would impede exercise by federal officers of authority under 8 USC sections 1357(a), 1226(a) or (c), 1231(a), 1366(1) or (3). States do not forfeit all autonomy over their own police power merely by accepting federal grants, and while federal executive has significant powers over immigration matters, "power of purse" is not one of said powers to force compliance with federal laws. Ct.  remanded matter for determination if any other injunctive relief was appropriate in view of court's determination that section 10153 cannot be used to incorporate laws unrelated to grants or grantees. (Partial dissent filed.)

Dist. Ct. did not err in granting defendants-police officer and City's motion for summary judgment in plaintiff's section 1983 action alleging that defendant-police officer used excessive force during attempt to apprehend plaintiff's decedent. Record showed that prior to shooting, police officer received dispatch: (1) requesting assistance in apprehending decedent, who allegedly had arrest warrant for strangulation and suffocation; and (2) notifying officer that decedent had taken vehicle without consent and was known for violent tendencies. Thereafter, officer spotted decedent in vehicle, and decedent led officer on car chase that ended with decedent crashing his car into tree and decedent fleeing scene into car repair shop, where officer and decedent confronted each other between parked SUV. Officer thereafter shot decedent in repair shop six times. Officer was entitled to qualified immunity, since officer could reasonably use deadly force, where record showed that: (1) decedent had refused every opportunity to surrender during chase and during confrontation in car repair shop; (2) decedent chose to become aggressor and had dared officer to shoot him; and (3) officer reasonably believed that decedent's actions placed him in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury.

Dist. Ct. erred in entering judgment in defendant's favor at close of plaintiff' case in bench trial on qui tam action, alleging that defendants violated Anti-Kickback Statute by paying co-defendant $5,000 on monthly basis for access to records of co-defendant's medical patients for purpose of permitting defendants to gain access to contact information that would allow defendants to solicit said patients to purchase services provided by defendants. While as Dist. Ct. noted there was no evidence indicating that co-defendant directed its patients to defendants, instant file-access could constitute improper referral under Anti-Kickback Statute under certain circumstances. As such, remand was required, where, as here, Dist. Ct. made necessary ultimate finding that agreement with co-defendant was not intended to induce referrals, yet had failed to make subsidiary findings necessary to reveal its chain of reasoning. Dist. Ct., though, may reach new findings of fact and conclusions of law on existing record or may reopen record to receive additional evidence.