Authors: James Dunlop, Tara Fumerton
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- CAPITOL RECAP: Elections board director on leave after attempted online extortion, agency says - Quad City Times
- Bail reform debate continues | Courts | newspressnow.com - News-Press Now - News-Press Now
- Pritzker Downplays Court Decision - Alton Daily News
- State Sen. Bill Cunningham joins Better Government Association fight to make Navy Pier Chicago documents public through FOIA - WLS-TV
- Daily news headlines for April 10 - Illinois Policy
- Rep. Mondaire Jones Argues For An Expanded Supreme Court - NPR Illinois
- New York Gets Ready to Jump on the Biometric Bandwagon - JD Supra
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Scholarship & White Papers
Public Opinion Research
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Challenges to Illinois Gun Control Policy: People v. Aguilar – Podcast
Criminal Law & Procedure Practice Group Podcast, September 20, 2013
Featuring: Nelson Lund, Dean A. Reuter
Media & Commentary
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A Recent History of Medical Malpractice and Civil Justice Reform in Illinois: The Five Year Wait for the Supreme Court to Decide the Fate of Reform in LEBRON V. GOTTLIEB MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
Recently, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled on the validity of the bipartisan Medical Malpractice Reform Act of 2005.1 The last effort to enact civil justice reform occurred in 1995 when a Republican majority controlled the Illinois General Assembly and the Governorship. That General Assembly promulgated several civil reforms and bundled a hard cap on noneconomic damages inside a larger omnibus bill. At the time, the Illinois civil justice reforms were considered the most comprehensive tort reform to be enacted by any state legislature. A Cook County trial judge ruled the legislation unconstitutional almost immediately after its effective date. On appeal from Cook County, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in Best v. Taylor Machine Works2 that the caps on noneconomic damages were an infringement of the separation of powers and the bar on “special legislation” and struck the entire tort reform package. In doing so, the supreme court considered a severability clause meant to preserve the other tort reforms in the legislation and determined that the parts that were unconstitutional could not be severed from those remaining.