Illinois Lawyer Referrals and Legal Guidance

I recently was called by a nice guy.  Actually he was too nice.  A client had bounced a $50,000.00 check to him.  He followed up with the client who apologized and promised to make things right.  That was four months ago.  Now the client is ignoring his calls and e-mails.

When we talked, the caller was hesitant to sue and hoped that a letter from an attorney would get results.  Honestly, all that would do is waste paper.   Anyone that will bounce a check, promise to make things right and then blow you off is not going to worry about a lawyer letter.

The only way to get results in a situation like this is to file a lawsuit.  That can’t be ignored and if it is you will get a judgment for everything you want and will then be able to attempt to collect from the scumbag.  By filing a lawsuit they will either have to respond or be forced in to bankruptcy.  Either of those things is good for you as it leads to some finality.

I love nice callers and wish they were treated better.  But sometimes you have to get someone to stick up for you and put pressure on the person that wronged you.  Otherwise you will be hoping that a bad person turns magically in to a good person.  And if that’s the plan you will be waiting a long time.

3/22/12

The number one phone call we get is from someone who feels that they have been wrongfully terminated.  Many of these callers have been wrongfully terminated for reasons such as their boss being in a bad mood, the owner wanting to hire a relative or no reason at all.  Unfortunately, unless those callers are in a union or otherwise have an employment contract, they have no case.

Generally speaking, there is no such thing as a wrongful termination lawyer in Illinois.   There is however an illegal termination attorney.  It comes down to were you let go legally or illegally and can you prove it.  It’s illegal for example to fire someone because of their race (or age, gender, sexual orientation, because they were hurt on the job, because they complained about sexual harassment, etc.).  If you can prove that this was why you were fired then you would have a good case.

The key is being able to prove it.  A black man that has a noose hanging in his locker can likely show illegal activity occurred.  Most employers aren’t dumb enough or mean enough to do something like that.  So you may know in your heart that you were illegally fired, but not have proof of it.

If you don’t have proof, you should file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (eeoc.gov) or Illinois Department of Human Rights and you should do that ASAP.  These Government agencies will investigate your case and can often be the ones that gather evidence of illegal activity.

Regrettably most people don’t have a case and if they do it can take a long time.  As a worker, the best thing you can do is document everything that has happened to you and keep good records.  A lot of bad employers get away with bad actions, but not all of them.  Keeping good records and reporting problems to HR is the one way to get justice.

3/20/12

When you rent an apartment from a landlord, you will sign a lease agreement which controls how the details of your relationship will be handled.   Clearly every lease should set out the amount you will be paying in rent, and when your payments are due.  But the other paragraphs of your lease can also affect what you may have to pay if there is a problem or an issue between you and your landlord.  All of the parts taken together tell the full story of who is responsible for which things moving forward.

Sometimes you may sign on the dotted line, and hope for the best, without really knowing what may be expected of you if, for example, there is a fire in your apartment, or some other problem comes up.  Landlords have more experience and familiarity with their own lease agreements.  So it is in the best interest of tenants to know what they are getting themselves into when they sign.

When it happens that you do end up in a disagreement with your landlord or the landlord’s insurance company, you do not necessarily need to accept on faith if they are telling you that you are responsible for something according to the lease.  Recently in a case in the Illinois courts, a tenant was being told by the landlord’s insurer that he was responsible for fire damage.  The insurer pointed to the lease provision that said that the tenant was responsible for all damage.

But also in the same lease agreement, was a more specific provision about fire damage, excluding it from the loss that the tenant would be responsible for.  Had he just accepted what he was being told, that his lease made him responsible for all loss, he would have been forced to pay a lot of money.  Instead, the lease had to be read all together as one whole document, to get the full story.  One particular part should not have been pulled out from the rest.  According to the lease, the fire damage was not his cost to pay.

Landlord’s and insurance companies have tried to make the opposite argument as well.  Not only do they try to point to one particular part and not the whole, but in other cases they have said that if a specific provision is absent from the lease, you can rely on that too, in spite of what the rest of the agreement actually says.  In the scenario of fire damage, the argument has been made and rejected, that if the agreement does not specifically exclude fire damage from tenant’s responsibility, then the tenant must be on the hook for it.

The Illinois courts have said, in this context too, that the lease must be looked at as a whole, and not picked apart for what is in one section, or what is not there.  They have said that you look at all of the parts of the lease agreement together, and see what each side intended.

The lesson to be learned from these cases is that it is important to know what you are signing before you commit yourself, but also that games of “gotcha” will not necessarily fly when it comes to interpreting financial responsibility in leases.  It is best to speak with an attorney if you are in such a situation, and be sure that what you are being asked to pay is really in fact your responsibility.

2/7/12

When you rent an apartment from a landlord, usually you are asked for an amount of money up front as a security deposit.  Your landlord holds this deposit, so he or she is not stuck losing money on things like unpaid rent, or damage to the property when your lease is done or you leave.  But the landlord is holding your money, and cannot treat it casually.  There are Illinois laws as well as local ordinances, which spell out how your landlord should handle your security deposit in a residential rental.

For example, renters in Evanston fought back to have their security deposit returned, and had the backing of a local Evanston ordinance, which is similar to ordinances in the city of Chicago, and other towns in Illinois.  The law specifies that a landlord has a certain period of time to return your security deposit.  And if some or all it is being held to repair damage to the property that you caused, the landlord needs to give you a written notice that itemizes the charges that are needed for those repairs.

In this case, at the end of the lease, the landlord kept the full amount of the security deposit, and sent the renters a list of the property damage, but said the charges were to be determined.  According to these local ordinances, specific dollar amounts needed to be provided for all the money that was not being returned.   Actual repair costs should be determined and provided for you, before your money is kept from you.

Illinois law generally, also provides apartment renters with security deposit protection.  The law sets out deadlines for the landlord to give notice about damage to the property and repairs that are required, and to then provide receipts for the work.  If the landlord does not comply with the deadlines and requirements for showing why some or all of your security deposit should be withheld, then the full amount needs to be returned.

Your landlord should not just hold on to your security deposit money, because he or she had a disagreement with you about the condition of your apartment and the repairs. You are entitled to have some certainty and security in how your money is being handled.

2/3/12