Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and currently the world’s richest man, has been sued for defamation by Michael Sanchez, the brother of Bezos’s girlfriend/fiancé. In his complaint, filed in a California state court, Sanchez alleges that Bezos has falsely spread rumors that Sanchez obtained and provided explicit text messages…
When a corporation hires an independent auditor to inspect its financials does that auditor owe fiduciary duties to its client? If no fiduciary duties exist as a matter of law, do they arise by virtue of a “special relationship” between the parties? In a matter of first impression, an Illinois…
Linda Fairstein was once lauded as a champion of women and victims of sexual assault when she was prosecuting the case against the Central Park Five in 1989 and after she succeeded in getting them convicted. Fairstein was in charge of the sex crimes division of the Manhattan district attorney’s…
Facebook has agreed to pay $550 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over its use of facial recognition technology in Illinois. According to the complaint, Facebook’s photo-labeling service called Tag Suggestions, violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act by harvesting biometric from the photos of millions of Illinois users without…
When a high-level employee left Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) to start his own consultancy company, ADM filed suit against the former employee alleging that his new business violated the non-disclosure agreement he signed. A trial court sided with ADM and enjoined the former employee from engaging in consultancy activities. In…
As the sexual assault trial of Harvey Weinstein gets underway, people are reminded of the impact of the #MeToo movement on our justice system. We are also reminded of another truth that many victims of sexual assault know all too well, waiting to speak out can mean that the guilty…
For the second time in a week, President Trump’s reelection campaign filed a defamation lawsuit against a major media outlet. The target of this lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., is The Washington Post. The allegedly defamatory statements at issue in the lawsuit come from two opinion pieces…
Though it has been months since the initial cases of people being infected with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) surfaced, many employers in the United States still find themselves unprepared to respond to a local outbreak of the coronavirus. While Illinois and Chicago health officials seem sure that there is no…
A couple who defaulted on their mortgage filed suit against prospective purchasers who dropped out of a short sale agreement shortly before closing. Though the couple later sold the property at a different short sale, the appellate panel determined that the $35,000 difference in the prices was a loss attributable…
A private investigator involved in a controversial investigation of a wrongful conviction, who was later alleged to have employed improper investigative techniques in a book and a documentary, sued several defendants for defamation and false light. The appellate panel reversed the trial court in part, finding that the investigator’s claims…