Filing Lawsuit Doesn’t Meet Conversion Suit ‘Demand for Possession’ Requirement – 7th Cir. (applying IL law)

Conversion, or civil theft, requires a plaintiff to make a demand for possession of the converted property before suing for its return.  This pre-suit demand’s purpose is to give a defendant the opportunity to return plaintiff’s property and avoid unnecessary litigation. What constitutes a demand though?  The easiest case is where a plaintiff serves a …

Of Styx, Starbucks and A Drink Is Not A Beverage (??)

I remember being frantic one weeknight in the Fall of 1978. In a good way. My dad had picked me up from grade school (St. Thomas Aquinas – East Wichita, KS) in his Ice Blue Monte Carlo and together we trekked to David’s, the long shuttered department store in Wichita’s Parklane shopping mall. (I still …

Tacking Unsigned Change Orders On To Contractors’ Lien Not Enough For Constructive Fraud – IL Court

Constructive mechanics lien fraud and slander of title are two central topics the appeals court grapples with in Roy Zenere Trucking & Excavating, Inc. v. Build Tech, Inc., 2016 IL App (3d) 140946.  There, a commercial properly developer appealed bench trial judgments for two subcontractor plaintiffs – a paving contractor and an excavating firm – …