In the Headlines:
► Clifford Law Offices: Robert A. Clifford (bet-the-company litigation; commercial litigation; mass tort litigation / class actions – plaintiffs; personal injury law – plaintiffs; product liability litigation – plaintiffs; qui tam law, 1993) represented a woman whose ovarian cancer was allegedly the result of talcum powder exposure, according to the Cook County Record. She sought compensation from Johnson & Johnson, which manufactures baby powder containing talcum powder.
► Figliulo & Silverman: James R. Figliulo (bet-the-company litigation; legal malpractice law – defendants; legal malpractice law – plaintiffs; litigation – banking and finance; litigation – securities, 1995) and Peter A. Silverman (commercial litigation, 2010), along with others in their firm, defended International Payment Services LLC, which plaintiffs argued used a call center that “spoofed” caller IDs, tricking small-business owners. The defendants claimed there was no basis for the suit, as the plaintiffs had not suffered an injury, according to the Cook County Record.
► Laner Muchin: Joseph M. Gagliardo (employment law – management; labor law – management; litigation – labor and employment, 2006) successfully defended the village of Melrose Park against John Cannici, a former firefighter who claimed he had been unlawfully terminated. The three-judge panel ruled that Melrose Park acted within its rights. Melrose Park has an ordinance stating firefighters must be a resident of the village. Cannici lived in nearby Oakland Park.
► Taxman, Pollock, Murray & Bekkerman: Sean P. Murray (personal injury litigation – plaintiffs, 2018) represented a woman who sued the YMCA after she injured herself using a circular saw. The saw’s safeguard feature was removed, information that the plaintiff claimed the YMCA withheld.
► Winston & Strawn: Dan K. Webb (bet-the-company litigation; commercial litigation; criminal defense: white-collar; litigation – antitrust; mass tort litigation/class actions – defendants; medical malpractice law – defendants; patent law, 1987) declined an offer to join President Trump’s legal team, citing business conflicts. Though Webb is a Republican, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, he supported Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, but he denied that his past support for Clinton contributed to the decision.
Honorable Mention
► Ice Miller: James M. Snyder (public finance law, 2009) was appointed to the 2018 Illinois Association of School Boards (IASB) Service Associates’ Executive Committee, where he will counsel “hundreds of governmental entities throughout the state of Illinois,” according to the Chicago Tribune. Snyder is a partner at Ice Miller and the head of the firm’s Illinois Municipal Finance Group.
ITN Feature
► Illinois Woman Sues Google, Facebook for Providing ISIS Platform
Romanucci & Blandin: Antonio M. Romanucci (personal injury litigation – plaintiffs; workers’ compensation law – claimants, 2013) represented an Illinois woman in a suit alleging that Google, Facebook, and Twitter “knowingly [provided] support and resources to ISIS,” and are therefore responsible for injuries inflicted on her by the group during a 2015 trip to Paris.
The plaintiff was visiting France to run a marathon. She stopped by La Belle Equipe, a café in Paris, on November 13, 2015, on the evening that ISIS supporters killed 130 people and injured 400 more in the city. Although the plaintiff survived the attack, 19 others at La Belle Equipe were killed as she and her friends lie in hiding on the ground. In her suit, the woman said she suffered psychological and emotional harm. The tech companies accused in the suit were not active participants in the shooting, but the lawsuit found them responsible for providing a platform on which ISIS and the group’s sympathizers could organize. It placed the number of ISIS-affiliated Twitter accounts at 70,000 and made reference to the video of James Foley’s beheading, which was briefly hosted on YouTube.
The complaint states that ISIS used social media “to specifically threaten France that it would be attacked for participating in a coalition of nations against ISIS, to celebrate smaller attacks leading up to these major attacks, and to transform the operational leaders of the Paris attacks into ‘celebrity’ among jihadi terrorists,” and that these platforms gave the group “a sense of authenticity and legitimacy,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
