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Sports teams often make more money from the merchandise and apparel they sell, stamped with the team name and logo, than they do tickets to games. As a result, it makes sense that they have a vested interest in protecting the right to put their name and logo on clothing and merchandise, but a patent on the name of a state seems to many people to be a step too far.

The University of Kentucky, home to the basketball team, the Wildcats, is claiming that it purchased the patent for putting “Kentucky” on any clothing back in 1997. So when Colin Fultz filed for a trademark of his business’s name, “Kentucky Mist Moonshine,” he received a cease and desist letter from the University of Kentucky. The University says it does not object to the name of the whiskey, only to the word “Kentucky” being put on promotional hats, T-shirts, etc.

Fultz’s business is a distillery that makes and sells fruit-infused whiskey and he has had to fight for his business since it was still just a concept. His hometown of Whitesburg was a dry town up until 2007, so when Fultz started taking the first steps to getting his business up and running a few years ago, the City Council needed some convincing that the town was ready, not just for alcohol, but for a distillery. Fultz thought the biggest hurdle was over when the City Council just barely voted to let him have his distillery, but that was just the beginning.

The athletic official for the University of Kentucky, Mr. Schlafer, said they intended for the letter to open up negotiations between Fultz and the University. He insists the local college, which makes about $123 million every year from the athletic department, has a right to protect the Wildcat brand. Continue reading ›

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Our Chicago automobile fraud and Lemon law attorneys near Lombard, Lisle and Elmhurst have experience representing victims of  odometer roll backs, title washing, fake or improper certifications of rebuilt wrecks and other used car scams. We bring individual and class actions suits for defective cars with common design defects and auto dealer fraud and other car dealer scams such as selling rebuilt wrecks as certified used cars or misrepresenting a car as being in good condition when it is rebuilt wreck or had the odometer rolled back. We also see cases where new car dealers conceal that the car has been in accident while in their possession or used car dealers who put duck tape in back of the check engine light to conceal serious engine or emission problems.  Super Lawyers has selected our DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, Will and Cook County Illinois auto-fraud, car dealer fraud and lemon law lawyers as among the top 5% in Illinois. We only collect our fee if we win or settle your case. For a free consultation call our Chicago class action lawyers at our toll free number 630-333-0333 or contact us on the web by clicking here.

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Flood cars belong in a junkyard not in your garage.  We sue used car dealers who scam you

into buying a flooded car.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f2fvRXWieg

Continue reading ›

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Have you ever wondered if that bank fee or overdraft charge from your bank was legal? If you tried to challenge your bank in a court of law, chances are you found out you had signed an arbitration agreement, which meant you could not settle the dispute in a court of law. Instead, you had to go through arbitration to accuse your bank of charging illegal fees or mismanaging your money.

If you choose to use arbitration, you have to cover all your legal fees yourself, which can quickly reach thousands of dollars. If you believe your bank has illegally taken funds out of your account, the chances are the amount they took was negligible. Three dollars for an overdraft fee may not seem like much, but for some people it can mean passing on a box of groceries. Even if it’s not much for the individual consumer, if the bank is improperly charging these types of fees to a large portion of its customers, it’s probably making a fortune illegally. Continue reading ›

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It’s a story that never gets old: the small-town attorney goes after the massive corporation. Only in this case, the massive corporation is the famous rock band Led Zeppelin. And the fight is over one of the most iconic songs of all time: Stairway to Heaven.

According to the recent lawsuit, filed in 2014 in Los Angeles, California, the writers of the famous song, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, allegedly missappropriated the iconic opening arpeggio from a song called Taurus, by a much more obscure band called Spirit.

According to the lawsuit, Taurus was released in 1968. Towards the end of that same year, Led Zeppelin was just starting to make a name for itself. They played with Spirit in their first U.S. concert in Denver, Colorado, although it’s not clear whether Spirit played Taurus that night. Either way, Stairway to Heaven was released three years later and Randy Wolfe’s name was nowhere to be found in the credits.

Wolfe, who went by the stage name Randy California, was a guitarist and the writer of Taurus. He died in 1997, but before his death, he had said in interviews that he felt cheated because he had never been given credit for Led Zeppelin’s famous song. When Wolfe died, his song rights went into a trust that is currently overseen Mick Skidmore, a former fellow music writer.

Skidmore agreed with the claim that Wolfe should have been given credit for Stairway to Heaven, and a cut of the massive royalties to go along with it, but he felt the case was hopeless. He was discouraged from going up against Led Zeppelin, which has acquired a massive fortune, and continues to do so through royalties for their songs. Skidmore said he just doesn’t have the resources to take them on in court. Continue reading ›

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Paramount Pictures holds the copyright to Klingon, spoken by some characters in “Star Trek.” A group called the Language Creation Society says that’s not right. The Hollywood Reporter says the group sued saying Klingon is a real language, Paramount can’t copyright it any more than it could English or Chinese. Paramount has been forced to defend itself by arguing that Klingon is fake and therefore in reality useless. Continue reading ›

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An interesting recent Illinois appellate court decision from the First District addressed who may inherit from a testator’s estate when one of the named beneficiaries dies before the testator, with the outcome turning on the meaning of “survivors” as written in the will.  Albert Lello, who passed away in 2012, drafted a will leaving his entire $8.2 million estate to his wife and two sisters “in equal shares, or to the survivor or survivors of them.” One sister, Virginia H., predeceased him by seven months. Her four children argued that “survivors” referred to them as the survivors, or heirs, of one of Albert’s named beneficiaries, and they should inherit what would have been her one-third share. The Cook County probate court and First District appellate court disagreed, siding with the two surviving beneficiaries, Albert’s widow and sister Rita S., who argued that the will unambiguously created a class gift that could only be inherited by surviving members of that class.

In 2013, Virginia’s children filed a petition for construction of the will, alleging that Albert would have intended them to inherit Virginia’s share because of the close relationship they shared with him and the fact that he had no children of his own, and that ambiguity in the will as to the “survivors” language should be construed in their favor under state laws of intestate succession. After further motions by both sides, the probate court entered an order finding the will unambiguous as a matter of law. Continue reading ›

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Our Chicago automobile fraud and Lemon law attorneys near Schaumburg, Hoffman Estates and Elk Grove Village have experience representing victims of  odometer roll backs, title washing, fake or improper certifications of rebuilt wrecks and other used car scams. We bring individual and class actions suits for defective cars with common design defects and auto dealer fraud and other car dealer scams such as selling rebuilt wrecks as certified used cars or misrepresenting a car as being in good condition when it is rebuilt wreck or had the odometer rolled back. We also see cases where new car dealers conceal that the car has been in accident while in their possession or used car dealers who put duck tape in back of the check engine light to conceal serious engine or emission problems.  Super Lawyers has selected our DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, Will and Cook County Illinois auto-fraud, car dealer fraud and lemon law lawyers as among the top 5% in Illinois. We only collect our fee if we win or settle your case. For a free consultation call our Chicago class action lawyers at our toll free number 630-333-0333 or contact us on the web by clicking here.

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Uber has agreed to settle two class-action lawsuits brought by its drivers. One was started in Massachusetts, the other in California, where drivers sued to be considered employees eligible for benefits and not just independent contractors. Under the settlement, they do remain contractors, but Uber will pay up to $100 million to be shared by as many as 385,000 drivers.

Our Maywood, Joliet and Berwyn wage and hour attorneys and unpaid overtime lawyers and attorneys are intimately familiar with the issues that arise during wage claim litigation, and we know the laws that govern overtime cases well. Many employers misclassify employees as being exempt from overtime laws and pay workers salaries instead of hourly wages in order to avoid paying them overtime. Some employers mistakenly classify employees as exempt and others intentionally do so in order to circumvent the law. In either case, workers do not receive the wages they should, and a lawsuit may be the only way to recover their earned wages. We represent call center workers who are forced to work overtime but are not paid time and half wages.

Nationwide Consumer Rights is based in Chicago and Oakbrook Terrace. We represent clients throughout the country who have not been paid for the overtime hours that they worked. If you believe that you are owed overtime wages, contact one of our Chicago class action attorneys by phone at 630-333-0333 or through our online form.

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Any time you do anything online, even it’s just visiting a website, you usually have to agree to the company’s Terms of Service. Because these documents can be pages long and we live in an increasingly time-crunched world, very few people actually read the Terms of Service before checking the “Agree” box. Sometimes this lack of diligence gets people into trouble, but depending on how it’s presented, it could be the company that gets into trouble.

When Gary Sgouros filed a proposed class action lawsuit against TransUnion Corp. for allegedly providing worthless credit scores, the company tried to have the dispute sent to arbitration in accordance with the arbitration agreement contained in its Terms of Service.

Sgouros had paid almost $40 for the credit report in 2013 in the hopes of using it to help him negotiate a loan on a new car he was looking to purchase. But the score provided by TransUnion was higher than the number provided to the car dealership by at least 100 points. Sgouros argues this made the credit score he paid for effectively worthless.

In 2014, Sgouros filed the proposed class action lawsuit in Illinois federal court on behalf of himself and all other similarly situated consumers across the country who purchased a credit score from TransUnion any time since 2012. Sgouros is also seeking to represent a subclass of TransUnion customers in Missouri, his home state. Continue reading ›

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