Weekly Case Digests March 7, 2022 - March 11, 2022.

• Author: Hawkins, Derek
• Position: Andrea Santiago v. City of Chicago, Conway Freight, Inc., v. Labor and Industry Review Commission and Rock County v. P.P.

Byline: Derek Hawkins

7th Circuit Digests

7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Andrea Santiago v. City of Chicago

Case No.: 20-3522

Officials: FLAUM, KANNE, and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Class Action Certification

Andrea Santiago, a severely disabled Chicago resident, would leave her van parked on the street in front of her home for extended periods of time. In 2018, pursuant to the Chicago Municipal Code, her van was towed, impounded, and disposed of. She sued the City of Chicago on her own behalf and on behalf of others similarly situated, challenging the constitutionality of various aspects of the City's scheme, among other things. She moved the district court to certify her suit as a class action, and the district court granted her motion in part. However, because the class certification order does not fully demonstrate the "rigorous analysis" required by Rule 23, an approval, at this point, constituted an abuse of discretion. We therefore vacate and remand for further consideration.

Vacated and remanded

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7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Romspen Mortgage Limited Partnership, v. BGC Holdings LLC Arlington Place One, et al.,

Case No.: 20-3017

Officials: RIPPLE, ROVNER, and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Breach of Forbearance Agreement

This case brings to us a contract dispute over a piece of commercial real property in Arlington Heights, Illinois. After BGC Holdings, LLC, et al., ("BGC") defaulted on a loan secured by Romspen Mortgage Limited Partnership ("Romspen"), the parties negotiated an agreement to avoid foreclosure of the property (the "Arlington Property") and to salvage the loan. As a result of these negotiations, they entered into a Forbearance and Loan Extension Agreement (the "Forbearance Agreement" or the "Agreement"). By the terms of this document, Romspen agreed to hold off on the judicial sale of the property; for its part, BGC agreed to make a $1.6 million payment on the loan. While the parties were negotiating the Forbearance Agreement, BGC learned that Romspen had filed a lien against another property (the "1907 Property") in which one or more of the defendants had an ownership interest. This news created a problem for BGC because it had planned to refinance the 1907 Property so that it could make the payment on the Arlington property as required by the Forbearance Agreement. When BGC failed to provide proof of a refinancing plan for the Arlington Property, Romspen refused to remove the lien on the 1907 Property, and eventually BGC foreclosed on the Arlington Property.

After the foreclosure sale of the Arlington Property, BGC filed a motion for leave to file a counterclaim alleging that Romspen had breached the Forbearance Agreement. In response, Romspen filed a motion for an order confirming the judicial sale of the property. The district court denied BGC's motion to file a counterclaim. It ruled that Romspen had not breached the Forbearance Agreement because it made "commercially reasonable efforts" to remove the lien on the 1907 Property. The district court also granted Romspen's motion for confirmation and issued a separate order confirming the sale of the Arlington property and ordering the eviction of BGC.

BGC now appeals. For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we conclude that Romspen did not breach the Forbearance Agreement and that the district court's decision to confirm the sale of the Arlington property was proper. We therefore affirm the district court's judgment.

Affirmed

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7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Michael Moss v. United Airlines, Inc., et al.,

Case No.: 20-3246

Officials: RIPPLE, ROVNER, and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges.

Focus: USERRA Violation Seniority-based Benefits

Michael Moss brought this class action against United Airlines ("United") under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act ("USERRA"). This statute requires employers to provide employees on military leave any seniority-based benefit the employee would have accrued but for the military leave. USERRA also requires employers to provide employees on military leave any nonseniority-based benefits that the employer provides to employees on a comparable leave of absence. This latter provision is not at issue in this appeal.

The district court granted summary judgment to United Airlines on Mr. Moss's claim that the company had violated USERRA by denying sick-time accrual in excess of ninety days to military reservist employees. The district court held that sick-time accrual was not a seniority-based benefit within the meaning of the statute.

We now affirm the judgment of the district court. The district court correctly determined that United's sick-time accrual is not a seniority-based benefit. For a benefit to be seniority-based, the benefit must be a reward for length of service. Sick leave is not such a reward.

Affirmed

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7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Victoria Looper, et al., v. Cook Incorporated, et al.,

Case No.: 20-3103

Officials: KANNE, HAMILTON, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Jurisdiction Multidistrict Litigation

These two consolidated appeals raise issues about how the common practice of "direct filing" in multidistrict litigation may affect the choice of law in individual cases within the larger MDL. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation asked Judge Richard L. Young of the Southern District of Indiana to oversee a multidistrict litigation docket to coordinate discovery and other pretrial proceedings in thousands of medical product-liability suits against Cook Incorporated and related entities alleging that Cook's inferior vena cava (IVC) filters were defective. See 28 U.S.C. 1407.

In these appeals...