Articles Posted in Federal Jurisdiction

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Hubert Walker represented a class of truck owner-operators who sued Trailer Transit Inc., a broker of trucking services, for breach of contract. The lawsuit was filed in an Indiana state court. The underlying lawsuit concerned a lease agreement between Walker, who owned and operated a long-haul truck and trailer transit. Under the contract, Trailer Transit leased Walker’s equipment and Walker picked up and delivered shipments arranged by Trailer Transit. 

The parties’ agreement required Trailer Transit to pay Walker 71% of the gross revenues derived from the use of the truck, less all items intended to reimburse trailer transit for special services.

Walker alleged in his complaint that Trailer Transit violated the lease agreement with him and hundreds of other truckers by charging “add-on fees” to customers that exceeded the costs of special services. Because the overcharge fees were not intended to be reimbursed to Trailer Transit, Walker maintained that the truckers were entitled to a portion of those fees under the lease agreement. The complaint alleged that the truckers would be entitled to 71% of the overcharge.

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On Jan. 14, 2010, Anthony Rossi was driving eastbound on 95th Street in Oak Lawn, Ill.  The corner of his car was hit by a semi-tractor-trailer truck on the same eastbound 95th Street driven by the defendant, Steven Groft, as he was changing lanes.  The crash caused Rossi’s car to spin out of control. 

Rossi, age 28, refused to be taken to a hospital by ambulance, but later drove himself to the emergency room at Christ Hospital.  The defendants defended the case, arguing for limiting the severity of Rossi’s injuries.

Rossi maintained that he suffered a ligamentous cervical injury (whiplash), facet joint syndrome, aggravation of cervical spondylosis and chronic neck pain, which required a series of facet and trigger point injections and nerve ablations. Rossi had applied for a job as a Cook County Correctional Officer. He was not hired. Rossi claimed that his injuries from the crash prevented him from being hired by the County.  He is now unemployed and a stay-at-home father.

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Philip Crosby worked for Cooper B-Line Inc., a manufacturer of electrical components and tools.  A portion of Crosby’s middle finger was severed while he was working on the job on July 28, 2010. Crosby filed a claim in the Illinois Industrial Commission under the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act.  He asked for his medical bills to be paid and for temporary total disability benefits. 

Crosby returned to work in September 2010.  In a conversation with his manager, Crosby allegedly argued that he did not intend to refrain from using the unsafe work practice that led to his injury.  His employer, Cooper, then suspended him for 3 days without pay as a disciplinary measure.  A grievance was filed on behalf of Crosby by his union. 

A few days later, Crosby was accused of violating a different safety regulation and was fired. At this point, the union representing workers at Crosby  asked that his termination be referred to as a permanent lay off without recall rights. That would make him eligible for unemployment benefits and a neutral job reference for the future.

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In a breach of contract case, the issue was whether a party defendant was a necessary defendant in this federal court case filed in Chicago. Two of the defendants, Nafeesa Moosabhoy and Aymen Tyebjee, moved to dismiss the complaint that Shabbir and Munira Nomanbhoy filed in federal court. 

The court found that the complaint satisfied the requirements for diversity jurisdiction because Shabbir and Munira were residents of California. They sought relief in the amount of $1.3 million in damages. Moosabhoy and Tyebjee  were residents of either Illinois or Texas. However, another obligor under the agreement, Zehra Vahanvaty, who Moosabhoy and Tyebjee alleged breached the contract, was a resident of California. Vahanvaty was claimed to be a necessary party under Rule 19 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and as a result diversity of citizenship would be destroyed. For diversity of citizenship federal jurisdiction, the plaintiff and defendant must be residents of different states. 

In support of the motion by Moosabhoy and Tyebjee, they argued there was no diversity of citizenship. They relied on the Seventh U.S. Circuit of Appeals stating that, “A contracting party is the paradigm of an indispensible party.”

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A federal court jury in St. Louis found that the driver of a tractor-trailer, Ilija Kuresevic of Fort Worth, Texas, was responsible for the crash in the early morning hours of Feb. 26, 2010 in Effingham County, Ill.  The injured party, George Reaves Jr., a St. Louis County truck driver, rear-ended another truck driven by Kuresevic on Interstate 70 in Illinois. 

Reaves claimed that the Kuresevic truck stopped or almost stopped in the roadway at 3 a.m., which was the reason for the crash. 

Reaves’s lawsuit said that when his UPS tractor trailer rear-ended Kuresevic’s truck, Reaves was seriously injured. He claimed that he injured his head, face, back and other parts of his body, including the loss of the tip of his tongue.Reaves was also rear-ended by another truck.

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