People v. Wells II

Aug 23, 2010

OUTCOME: Jury verdict of acquittal

The defendant was charged with battery.

Ward v. Illinois

Jan 08, 2010

OUTCOME: Judgment for the plaintiff.

The plaintiff was convicted of theft from her own mother in a prosecution instigated by her sister. The judgment in this case granted the plaintiff a certificate of the innocence, declaring her actual ... ly innocent of the charge of theft after a jury verdict of guilty that was overturned on appeal for reasons including the erroneous exclusion of Ward’s proffered witnesses and insufficiency of the evidence. In that appeal, the prosecution was barred from retrying Ward based on Double Jeopardy. The certificate of innocence was granted based on section 2-702 of the Code of Civil Procedure of Illinois, which was enacted in 2008. This is believed to be the first contested case seeking a certificate of innocence to go to trial since the law was enacted in 2008. Ward spent about two years and four months of a sentence of over six years incarcerated on the guilty verdict, most of that time spent in the maximum security penitentiary for women in Dwight, Illinois, in the company of convicted murderers. The jury in the criminal case acquitted Ward of the charge of financial abuse of an elderly person, a charge also instigated by the sister.

In re Miller

Dec 14, 2009

OUTCOME: Appeal dismissed

My opponent, the defendant, was the trustee of a trust that terminated in January 2002. Her responsibility as the trustee of the terminated trust was to liquidate the assets, pay any debts, and distri ... bute the remaining funds to the beneficiaries witin a reasonable time. When she had failed to accomplish anything for 18 months, my clients, the other beneficiaries, sued the trustee for her delay. A trial was held in 2006, which resulted in valuable benefits to my clients. Right before the trial court was going to determine how much money the trustee owed my clients, the trustee appealed. In January 2008, we moved to dismiss the appeal as premature, as the trial court had not yet finalized the amount due to my clients. In December 2009 the appellate court dismissed the appeal at our request, agreeing that the trustee's appeal was premaute.

Midwest Structural Drafting, Inc. v. Pierini Iron Works, Inc.

Sep 02, 2009

OUTCOME: Judgment for the plaintiff for almost everything.

The plainitff prepared shop drawings for the defendant in connection with a number of construction projects in Illinois, including Trump Internation Tower, either for as flat fee or at an agreed hourly ... rate. The defendant failed to either pay or object to a number of the plaintiff's invoices, and the plaintiff continued working on the assumption he would get paid eventually. The arrearage continued to grow, and the plaintiff began insisting on payment. In response, the defendant fired the plaintiff and refused to pay the vast majority of the oustanding balance, claiming that projects billed hourly were either supposed to be flat or capped fees, and further alleging numerous errors in the plaintiff's work. The plaintiff sued, and after a bench trial in February 2009, the court awarded the plaintiff virtually all of its claimed fees, finding that there was no real cap on the largest project and that the mistakes alleged by the defendant were not proven.

CNA International Inc. v. Guangdong Kelon Electrical Holdings Co. Ltd.

Apr 10, 2009

OUTCOME: Jury verdict for the plaintiff for $1,250,000.

The plaintiff, an importer in Wood Dale, Illinois, bought thousands of refridgeraters from the defendant, a Chinese manufacturer, and sold them to retailers, including Home Depot. A large number of th ... e refridgerators later failed to cool due to an admitted defect in welding due to inexperienced welders on the defendant's production line. We sued for the expenses and lost profit associated with those defects and won $1,250,000 for them from the jury. The defendant recovered the price for the refrigerators, which we did not object to.

In re Yucis

May 29, 2008

OUTCOME: Reversed

The trial court ordered my client's property to be sold to satisfy a criminal restitution order. On appeal, after the criminal restitution order was reversed in a seperate case, the appellate court re ... versed the turnover order, too.

People v. Ward

Apr 22, 2008

OUTCOME: Outright reversal of the trial court's conviction.

The defendant was charged with and convicted of theft at a trial handled by other counsel. I handled the appeal which resulted in an outright reversal of the conviction, with no retrial, which was ess ... entionally an acquittal.

Geico v. Rowland IV

Apr 07, 2008

OUTCOME: Judgment affirmed over the plaintiff's appeal.

The plaintiff appealled from a judgment in its favor in the amount of $500 after a proceeding in the trial court in which it claimed about $15,000 in damages, but the appellate court affirmed the judgm ... ent.

People v. Egermann

Aug 23, 2007

OUTCOME: Jury verdict of not guilty

Geico v. Rowland III

Aug 21, 2006

OUTCOME: Appeal dismissed with costs to the defendant.

The defendant's appeal was dismissed because the defendant filed the appeal too soon before the appellate court could have excersized proper jurisdiction over the appeal.