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MG_6325_1-300x200We defend and prosecute cyber smear and internet defamation cases throughout the Chicago area including near Schaumburg, Aurora, and Wheaton.

We have defeated claims against our clients with a number of creative defenses founded on the First Amendment, Innocent Construction or personal jurisdiction defenses.  We have also prevailed against such defenses for our libel plaintiff clients who have pursued defamations and slander claims.  We have obtained removal from the internet of commercially defamatory reviews against our business and professional services clients such as doctors and lawyers posted on internet review sites such as Google and Yelp.

You can view here a decision in an internet defamation case involving a negative review on the Rip-Off Report where we successfully defended our client by obtaining a dismissal based on lack of personal jurisdiction. For a detailed discussion of the personal jurisdiction defense in internet defamation cases, you can go to our website.

You can view here a Yelp review by our client of our firm regarding the result we obtained in winning her case.  This client was wrongfully sued for negative Yelp and other reviews against a daycare center that had been closed down by the Department of Children and Family Services for alleged negligent care of young children.

The Digital Media Law Website is a great resource for non-lawyers to learn about defamation law.  It defines defamation as follows:

Defamation

Defamation is the general term for a legal claim involving injury to one’s reputation caused by a false statement of fact and includes both libel (defamation in written or fixed form) and slander (spoken defamation). The crux of a defamation claim is falsity. Truthful statements that harm another’s reputation will not create liability for defamation (although they may open you up to other forms of liability if the information you publish is of a personal or highly private nature).

Defamation in the United States is governed by state law. While the U.S. Constitution sets some limits on what states can do in the context of free speech, the specific elements of a defamation claim can — and often do — vary from state to state. Accordingly, you should consult your state’s law in the State Law: Defamation section of this guide for specific information.

There are many defenses to defamation and slander claims. Our lawyers concentrate in this area and can provide our clients — both plaintiffs and defendants — with considerable resources to guide their claims through the intricacies of these defenses. You can go to our two websites to learn more about theses defenses here and here.

Here is a video regarding a client we defended in an internet defamation claim. We settled federal court case in favor of our client after we filed a sanctions motion against the used car dealer plaintiff for filing an allegedly false lawsuit; our client received a full release and all of his videos and negative video reviews remained on the internet after we won an arbitration proceeding against the dealer which was part of the settlement of the federal court suit dismissing all of the claims. Here is a new story about the case.

You can read the Arbitrator’s decision upholding our client’s rights to keep his videos posted on the internet here.  While the Arbitrator disagreed with our client’s tactics and did not endorse his conduct, he found our client had a First Amendment Right to speak his mind as long as he told the truth or simply voiced his opinions no matter how negative.  The Arbitrator held as follows based on our cross-examination of the Claimant’s owner proving that our client had told the truth when he claimed that the Claimant auto dealership had engaged in consumer fraud in the past and that our client had only made minor errors in his hundreds of postings and video reviews on Youtube of the auto dealership:

There is no issue that Claimant has engaged in false advertising. [It’s owner] has admitted as much and more, including submitting a false affidavit in litigation antecedent to this arbitration. Judgments and pleadings are public records; disseminating this information that is part of a public record is not actionable. In addition, the fact of entry of judgment provides a colorable foundation for the opinions and conclusions published by Bates. As much as the Claimants would like to explain away these events, and as minor a part this conduct has played in comparison with the totality of business operations, the facts are what they are; once in the public domain these facts can be both circulated and commented on.  In addition, insignificant errorata is not actionable in any event, and it is conceded that many postings are of this character.

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MG_6421_1-1-300x200We represent consumers who have brought Certified Pre-Owned Used Car Owners which is a rebuilt wreck. We have brought suit against many different manufacturers, such as Ford and GM, who have not stood behind the certification inspection which warrants that the used car was “like new” and thus had never been in a serious accident. In fact, the multi-point inspection missed that the used car had frame or other structural damage yet even though it passed the manufacturer refuses to stand behind the inspection claiming that the used car dealer, not the manufacturer is responsible for the inspection.  Our position is that this is a fraudulent position and we pursue alleged claims against the manufacturer based on this legal position for all the consumers’ damages plus attorneys fees and punitive damages.

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IMG_6355_3-300x189The district court rejected personal jurisdiction over a business and two of its employees where the alleged breach of contract and tortious interference occurred in a different state, and the employees and business lacked sufficient contacts with Illinois to justify jurisdiction.

Tower Communications and TSC Construction are competitors in the business of building and repairing wireless communication infrastructure. In 2017, both companies were working on an infrastructure construction project that spanned North and South Carolina. Tower sued TSC, alleging that during this project TSC poached Tower’s employees, Gary Juknevicius and Ruslan Tulegenov, and that TSC obtained confidential information from the poached employees and used that information to benefit its business.

The employment agreements that Juknevicius and Tulegenov had provided that they could not work for a competing company that worked on the same project as Tower for a period of six months after their employment ended. The agreement also prevented the employees from soliciting Tower’s employees, and from disclosing confidential information to a competitor. Included in the agreements was an arbitration clause. Continue reading ›

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A bank’s negligence suit against a check-cashing company was dismissed when the district court found that there was no private right of action under which the bank could sue to enforce regulations regarding the safeguarding of personal financial information.

USAA provides banking services to members and veterans of the United States military. PLS Group, Inc. provides payday loan and check cashing services at 300 retail locations in eleven states. PLS charges its customers a fee to cash checks or purchase money orders. PLS often cashes checks drawn on USAA bank accounts. When it cashes a check, PLS obtains information about the drawer of the check, including their name and signature, account and routing numbers, and encoded information used to verify the legitimacy of the checks.

In October 2012, PLS settled a suit brought by the Federal Trade Commission which alleged that PLS did not properly secure its’ customers’ information. Despite making changes to its processes, problems with unauthorized access to customers’ personal information continued. Nine individuals were later indicted by the government for engaging in a check-cashing scheme that used information from PLS employees to create fraudulent checks. Some of these counterfeit checks were drawn on USAA bank accounts. PLS employees involved in the scheme received a portion of the proceeds from the scheme. Continue reading ›

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A developer of healthcare software was denied damages for breach of contract. The court found that the developer had failed to take advantage of a substitute opportunity when its customer ceased paying on its consulting agreement and transferred its obligations to a successor company. Rather than contracting with the successor company, the owner of the software developer formed an entirely separate company to administer the new consulting arrangement. The court rejected this convenient manuever as a failure to mitigate damages, finding that the new arrangement would have completely offset the developer’s losses.

Orawin is a software technology consulting company, owned and operated by a single person. In 2002, the company developed software for SeniorDent, Inc., a dental management company that focuses on providing dental care to nursing home residents. In 2013, the two companies entered into a Consulting Services Agreement which required Orawin to maintain the software’s dental and vision operating systems and provide modifications determined by SeniorDent. SeniorDent agreed to pay Orawin a monthly retainer upon receipt of invoices.

SeniorDent later attempted to merge with Healthcare Delivered, LLC (“HCD”). HCD and Orawin entered into an amended consulting agreement, transferring all rights and obligations from SeniorDent to HCD. Two months later, the merger of SeniorDent and HCD fell apart, and HCD distributed SeniorDent to a holding company owned by the original owners of SeniorDent (“F&R”). HCD then transferred all of its rights to SeniorDent to the holding company. The owner of Orawin later sought payment for consulting services from HCD, and was told that the F&R was responsible for paying his invoice. The owner of Orawin later formed a new company, O&O, to provide services to the newly reorganized SeniorDent. SeniorDent paid O&O its standard fee beginning in December 2015 and has continued to pay every month since. Continue reading ›

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A manufacturer of systems that blend butane into gasoline prior to retail sale sued a competitor, accusing it of infringing on its patents. The competitor argued that the patents were invalid because the original inventors had sold their patented system to a third company more than a year before they filed for patents on the system, and because the plaintiff had allegedly engaged in inequitable conduct while prosecuting its patent claim. The Northern District of Illinois rejected the competitor’s arguments, finding that the sale of the system was made for experimental purposes and that the plaintiff’s conduct did not meet the high threshold required to invalidate the patents.

The plaintiff, Sunoco Partners, acquired its patents when it purchased the butane blending business of a company called Texon Terminals in 2010. The competitor, U.S. Venture, Inc. is in the business of mixing butane into gasoline prior to its distribution to retail outlets. In 2012, Venture retained Technics, Inc. to install a butane blending system at three of Venture’s fuel terminals located in Green Bay, Madison, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Sunoco later filed suit against U.S. Venture and Technics in federal court, accusing the companies of infringing on its patents when they installed the butane-blending systems at U.S. Venture’s fuel terminals. Continue reading ›

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When non-compete agreements can and cannot be used?

One of outgoing attorney general Lisa Madigan’s final acts was to settle a lawsuit the Attorney General’s office had brought against one of the nation’s largest payday lenders Check Into Cash alleging that the lender’s use of non-compete agreements ran afoul of Illinois law.

Illinois is one of a growing number of states cracking down on the widespread, indiscriminate use of non-compete agreements, particularly with low-skill or low-wage employees. Many employers who use non-compete agreement do not use them for their intended purpose–to protect an employer’s proprietary and valuable information–but instead, use them to prevent employees from leaving and to reduce the available workforce for competitors. It is this practice many states are seeking to curb.

States are also targeting another group of employers: those who attempt to use non-competition agreements for their intended purpose but do so using overly broad, poorly worded agreements. Courts have grown increasingly hostile to such agreements, opting to throw out the entire agreements rather than reign in or rework them (sometimes called blue penciling).

Three things are certain in the area of non-compete agreements (also referred to as restrictive covenants): (1) the agreement must be narrowly tailored so that it protects the employer’s legitimate business interest but does not unnecessarily go beyond that; (2) a poorly worded non-compete agreement is worse than no agreement as it provides a false sense of security but will likely not be enforced by a court (a fact an employer will learn only after lengthy, costly litigation); and (3) a non-compete agreement is not the type of agreement you can set and forget.

Non-compete law, perhaps more than any other area of law, is constantly changing and evolving. A do-it-yourself non-compete agreement or one drafted years ago likely will not hold up in court today. It is wise to have an attorney experienced in non-compete agreement law review and update your non-compete agreement every few years. The money spent now will more than pay off later when you are relying on that agreement to prevent an employee from walking out the door and taking your valuable, proprietary information to a competitor.

What non-compete agreements are and are not.

A non-compete agreement is a contract (or a provision in a contract) between an employer and an employee that prohibits the employee from performing certain activities within a specified geographic area for a set amount of time. The purpose of non-compete agreements is to protect an employer’s proprietary and valuable information. An employer who invests time and money in training an employee and discloses valuable information that the employer has developed at great expense wants protection from that employee leaving and using that information to directly compete with the employer. Examples of the type of information an employer might want to protect include customer lists, vendor lists, pricing lists, methods and procedures, and client renewal dates (for insurance brokers). Employers often use non-compete agreements in conjunction with non-solicitation agreements to further protect them from the impact of losing an employee.

Non-compete agreements are not a mechanism for retaining employees by eliminating all alternative employment opportunities. They also are not a mechanism for preventing competitors from being able to find workers for open positions. If there is evidence that an employer has used non-compete agreements for these prohibited purposes, a court will not enforce the agreement.

The first thing an employer must understand is when a non-compete (or non-solicitation) agreement can and cannot be used. As the Check Into Cash lawsuit demonstrates, non-compete agreements are not appropriate for all employees. The Illinois Freedom to Work Act, 820 ILCS 90/1 et seq., prohibits the use of non-compete agreements for employees whose earnings do not exceed the greater of minimum wage or $13 per hour. Continue reading ›

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Where circuit court did not err when it ordered plaintiff and defendant to each pay their own attorneys’ fees in case for breach of a lease agreement because the plaintiff and defendant both won and lost on some of their claims, and neither party prevailed on claims that were significantly complex.

Oak Forest Properties is a landlord that operates a strip mall in Oak Forest, Illinois. RER Financial is a franchisee of a consumer tax preparation business. The two companies entered into a commercial lease agreement. Oak Forest agreed to divide one of its buildings into two spaces, and RER agreed to lease one of those spaces. Oak Forest agreed to take on the construction costs of the division, and RER agreed to bear the costs of any interior construction of the space after the division.

The agreement required Oak Forest to finish construction before RER started any aspects of its interior build-out. The parties, however, ignored that requirement and combined their efforts to divide and build-out space, using the same contractor and a single building permit for all work. Eventually, the parties’ relationship broke down and RER exercised an option to terminate the lease. Continue reading ›

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A complaint alleging breach of a non-disclosure agreement and misappropriation of trade secrets was successfully dismissed for lack of jurisdiction where the defendant was not alleged to have sold a competing product within the state in which the action was filed.

Brad Diedrich worked from May 2003 through September 2017 for Mitek Corporation, an Illinois manufacturer of audio equipment. Diedrich worked as a Senior Engineering Manager for most of his time at the company. Through his work, Diedrich learned trade secrets and confidential information at Mitek. In 2016, Diedrich signed a non-disclosure agreement. The agreement also contained non-competition and non-solicitation clauses.

In April 2017, Diedrich went with Mitek’s President and CEO, John Ivey, to a Hong Kong electronics fair. At the fair, one of Mitek’s business partners, EVR, proposed to sell Mitek a digital signal processing amplifier. Ivey asked the company to send information regarding the proposal to Diedrich, but Diedrich failed to follow up on the proposal. Soon after, EVR agreed to work with a division of MTX to develop the new product. After executing a confidentiality agreement, EVR sent a prototype to MTX, which Diedrich viewed and examined. Continue reading ›

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The Illinois Appellate Court reversed a decision by the Illinois Circuit Court in a class action concerning the Consumer Fraud Act, where a retailer was alleged to have improperly collected taxes on exempt bottled water products. The court found that the voluntary payment doctrine did not apply to a payment that was allegedly obtained through deceptive business practices or acts. The court also found that an intent to deceive could be shown by evidence that the payment of the tax by the consumer was a predictable consequence of the retailer asking the consumer to pay the tax.

In 2008, the City of Chicago began imposing a five-cent tax on the sale of bottled water within city limits. Retailers are required to include the tax in the price of bottled water. The city excludes certain bottled beverages from the tax including certain brands of sparkling and mineral water, and other flavored and carbonated water products.

Destin McIntosh sued Walgreens Boots Alliance in Illinois state court. McIntosh filed a class action alleging that Walgreens violated the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act by charging the bottled water tax on sparkling water sales that were supposed to be exempt. Walgreens attempted to dismiss the case, arguing that McIntosh’s claim was barred because the tax was disclosed to McIntosh at the time of purchase and that the tax was remitted to the city. The Illinois circuit court granted the motion, and McIntosh appealed. Continue reading ›

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