Federal Civil Practice

Ct. of Appeals dismissed for want of jurisdiction defendant’s appeal of Dist. Ct. order that directed it to pay plaintiff-insured’s attorney fees arising out of plaintiff’s claim that defendant had wrongfully failed to pay proceeds from one of its life insurance policies, where: (1) defendant did not contest $191,362.06 judgment entered on insurance policy claim; and (2) Dist. Ct. had not yet entered specific dollar amount of attorneys' fees owed by defendant by time parties had participated in oral argument on defendant’s appeal of attorneys' fee issue. Absence of dollar figure made Dist. Ct. order on attorneys' fee issue non-final, and fact that Dist. Ct. had entered specific dollar amount on insurance policy issue was immaterial, since instant rule requiring finality of judgments applies to awards of attorneys' fees as fully as it does to decisions on substantive relief. Ct., though, denied plaintiff’s request for attorneys' fees generated in responding to defendant’s appeal, since plaintiff could have earlier filed motion to dismiss appeal as being premature, but failed to do so.

Dist. Ct. did not err in dismissing for failure to exhaust administrative remedies plaintiff-prisoner’s section 1983 action against defendants-prison nurses for acting with deliberate indifference toward his injuries. Dist. Ct. conducted hearing regarding said issue and could properly find that plaintiff missed relevant 60-day deadline for filing grievance with prison grievance counselor regarding nurses’ alleged misconduct, where plaintiff could not adequately account for 41-day delay in filing said grievance. Also, Dist. Ct. could properly credit defendants-prison guards’ testimony to defeat plaintiff’s excessive force claim, where guards’ testimony regarding plaintiff’s active resistance to their directives could plausibly account for plaintiff’s injuries.

Dist. Ct. did not err in dismissing plaintiff’s state court claims of negligent retention, negligence and willful and wanton conduct against defendants-plaintiff’s co-worker, hotel where plaintiff was staying and plaintiff’s employer arising out of incident in which defendant-co-worker inflicted personal injuries while both men were staying at defendant-hotel during layover for airline where both men worked. Dist. Ct. could properly dismiss plaintiff’s claims against his employer, since said work-related claims were required to be resolved by Ill. Workers Compensation Commission, where: (1) plaintiff’s injuries could properly be viewed as “accidental” from viewpoint of both plaintiff and employer within meaning of Workers Compensation Act; (2) plaintiff's injuries arose out of his employment while plaintiff was on travel status; and (3) plaintiff failed to establish that Commission would not compensate him for his injuries under circumstances where injuries were motivated by co-worker’s racial animosity. Ct. rejected plaintiff’s contention that Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act preempted Workers’ Compensation Act so as to allow Dist. Ct. to resolve plaintiff’s lawsuit. Dist. Ct. also properly dismissed remaining claims against hotel and co-worker, since: (1) plaintiff, as British citizen, sued both foreign citizen co-worker and U.S. citizen hotel; and (2) federal court has no diversity jurisdiction where foreign citizen sues both foreign citizen and U.S. citizen.

Dist. Ct. erred in granting defendants-prison guards’ motion for summary judgment in plaintiff-prisoner’s section 1983 action alleging that defendants used excessive force gratuitously while in prison, where Dist. Ct. found that defendant had not exhausted his administrative remedies prior to filing instant lawsuit as required under Prison Litigation Reform Act. Record showed that: (1) defendant made several attempts to file internal grievance regarding allegations at issue in instant complaint, and that all grievances were returned to defendant with notation that they had not been processed due to some defect in grievance; and (2) grievance coordinator gave plaintiff scant or no explanation as to how to cure said grievances so as to make them able to be processed. As such, granting summary judgment on nonexhaustion grounds was improper since reasonable fact-finder could conclude that plaintiff did all that was required of him, yet was prevented from filing grievance because of mixed or improper instructions from grievance coordinator.

Dist. Ct. did not err in dismissing for failure to state cause of action plaintiff’s Monell action against defendant-City, alleging that police dept.’s policies, that held him in custody for more than 48 hours before appearing at probable-cause hearing, as well as required that he participate in line-ups that produced misidentifications of him as culprit and that continued to label him as bank robber in certain closed police files, violated his due process and other constitutional rights. Plaintiff already prevailed in similar section 1983 action against police officers on his prolonged detention claim, and thus plaintiff could not proceed on same claim in the instant action. Moreover, defendant’s due process claim alleging that he was forced to participate in lineups that produced misidentification of him as culprit is without merit since said misidentifications were not admitted at trial. Also, nothing in Constitution addresses alleged reputational harm arising out of retention of false or misleading police files. (Partial dissent filed.)

Dist. Ct. did not err in granting plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment in action seeking to collect on defaulted loans that defendant had personally guaranteed. While defendant argued that plaintiff was estopped from bringing instant lawsuit because officer of plaintiff reneged on promise that plaintiff would set up $500,000 line of credit for defendant’s company and, until said line of credit was established, would finance any equipment purchase based on same terms as two prior loans that plaintiff had provided, defendant could not show that plaintiff’s officer made unambiguous promise of unlimited funding on same terms as prior loans, where prior loans had different interest rates and maturity dates. Moreover, plaintiff’s claim that officer orally promised unlimited funding until $500,000 line of credit was established was unbelievable because it did not make financial sense, and defendant otherwise failed to present any documentary evidence to support his claim that plaintiff’s failed promise of unlimited financing caused him to incur several million dollars in losses.

In action under 28 USC section 1782 in which plaintiff sought to obtain discovery from defendant to use in its trade secret misappropriation lawsuit against defendant in Germany that eventually resulted in judgment in plaintiff’s favor, Dist. Ct. did not err in denying plaintiff’s third request to modify protective order that had been entered upon defendant’s production of said discovery, where proposed modifications would have imposed restrictions on defendant’s internal use of said documents. Plaintiff, as party seeking modification of protective order, has burden of showing good cause to modify protective order, and plaintiff failed to meet said burden, where: (1) plaintiff had originally agreed to entry of original protective order; (2) plaintiff failed to establish change of circumstances that occurred after protective order had originally been entered, or after date plaintiff’s second request for modification of said protective order had been denied: (3) plaintiff’s subsequent trade secret enforcement proceedings seeking to enforce German judgment in other European countries had proceeded apace in spite of lack of proposed modification of protective order; and (4) current protective order had governed parties’ handling of subsequent litigation in ten lawsuits for over one year. Also, scope of instant appeal was limited to last of three requests by plaintiff to modify instant protective order, since: (1) first two denials by Dist. Ct. were final and appealable at time they were entered; and (2) plaintiff had failed to file timely notice of appeal with respect to first two denials.

Dist. Ct. lacked personal jurisdiction over defendant in trademark infringement claim under Lanham Act, where defendant had no client in Illinois, did not have any property or staff in Illinois, did not advertise in Illinois and never had employee or agent visit Illinois until it defended instant lawsuit. Lanham Act does not authorize nationwide service of process, and thus plaintiff had to secure personal services under Illinois state law. Moreover, fact that defendant may have known that its choice of name would injure plaintiff, which was located in Illinois, was insufficient to establish personal jurisdiction over defendant, since mere knowledge of potential harm to plaintiff in particular state is not same as acting in said state.

Record supported jury’s verdict in favor of defendant-police officer in plaintiff’s section 1983 action alleging that defendant: (1) falsely arrested plaintiff on charge of disorderly conduct during incident in which plaintiff was arrested outside Milwaukee Bucks stadium while plaintiff was attempting to re-sell scalped tickets; and (2) used excessive force and targeted plaintiff on account of his African-American race. Moreover, jury could rationally find that defendant’s stop of plaintiff was unlawful (because he lacked reasonable suspicion to stop plaintiff), but that said stop was not proximate cause of any compensable injury. Ct. rejected plaintiff’s claim that jury rendered inconsistent verdicts by finding in his favor on unlawful stop claim, but rejecting his claim that defendant used excessive force, even though plaintiff argued that use of any force following unlawful stop is necessarily excessive. Moreover, jury could properly find that degree of force used by defendant was not excessive when considering all circumstances of said encounter. Also, Dist. Ct. could properly award plaintiff only $1 as nominal damages for plaintiff’s successful unlawful stop claim.

Dist. Ct. erred in granting defendant-federal govt.’s motion for summary judgment in plaintiff’s Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) action alleging that forensic chemist with federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms fabricated report that wrongfully linked plaintiff to cause of fire in her home that resulted in her wrongful murder conviction. While Dist. Ct. found that defendant was entitled to sovereign immunity based on holding that intentional-tort exception to general waiver of sovereign immunity found in FTCA applied so as to preclude plaintiff from bringing instant malicious prosecution claim, Ct. of Appeals held that record was unclear as to whether forensic chemist status/job duties within Bureau allowed him to identify relevant evidence for colleagues during crime scene investigations. As such, record was not developed fully enough to support Dist. Ct.’s finding that chemist lacked necessary power to search, seize evidence or arrest so as to qualify as “investigation or law enforcement officer,” which, if forensic chemist qualified as said officer, would allow general waiver of sovereign immunity to apply to plaintiff’s lawsuit.