Seventh Circuit Roundup

This episode covers recent Seventh Circuit decisions on gun laws, arbitration appeals, and qualified immunity, highlighting procedural nuances and legal principles. Our team analyzes key cases, emphasizing the importance of factual disputes, appellate jurisdiction, and the impact of Supreme Court precedents.

Summary In this episode, Kian and Mark explore two recent Seventh Circuit cases on insurance law, standing, and appellate strategy, including a detailed analysis of the Havens Realty doctrine and its implications for litigators.

Show Notes: Hosts Kian Hudson and Mark Crandley examine two recent Seventh Circuit decisions that clarify critical pleading and compliance standards. Cases Discussed: Packing Corporation of America Thrift Plan v. Dina Langdon  When a divorced employee sends a fax requesting a beneficiary change but dies before submitting the proper forms, who gets the retirement benefits—the ex-wife or the estate?...

Episode Summary In this episode of Seventh Circuit Roundup , hosts Kian Hudson and Mark Crandley break down two recent and consequential Seventh Circuit decisions addressing Fair Housing Act pleading standards and constitutional limits on prosecutorial immunity. The discussion highlights practical litigation takeaways for practitioners navigating motions to dismiss, discrimination claims, and publ...

This episode covers three important decisions that the Seventh Circuit issued in November 2025: Chicago Teachers Union v. Educators for Excellence (a case addressing whether there is a private cause of action to enforce the federal ban on employer advocacy of candidates for union offices), Schoeps v. Sompo Holdings (a case brought by heirs of a German Jewish art collector to recover a Van Gogh pai...

As autumn settles in, the Seventh Circuit remains anything but quiet. In this episode of Seventh Circuit Roundup , hosts Kian Hudson, Mark Crandley, and Lara Langeneckert break down three decisions from late summer and early fall that each touch on a different corner of constitutional and civil-rights law: Schoenthal v. Raoul (a Second Amendment case that, in addition to the merits, raised a diffi...

In this month’s episode, the crew tackles three notable decisions from the Seventh Circuit. First up , Lara walks us through Lukaszczyk v. Cook County , a case involving a vaccine mandate, claims under Section 1983, and some strategic forfeitures that ultimately doomed the plaintiffs’ case. Next , Kian digs into Union Pacific Railroad Co. v. Illinois Mine Subsidence Insurance Fund , a jurisdiction...

The podcast returns with our monthly dose of Seventh Circuit opinions. First , Lara tackles a complex insurance coverage case with wide-ranging implications in Starstone Insurance SE v City of Chicago . The case starts with an esoteric jurisdictional question: Is a “societas Europaea” more like a corporation or a partnership for purposes of diversity jurisdiction? It then analyzes whether the insu...

This month’s podcast focuses on a trio of significant cases the Seventh Court handed down in mid-March within days of each other. Each of these cases has major ramifications for those in the Seventh Circuit. First, Kian takes on the Court’s en banc opinion in St. Anthony Hospital v. Whitehorn , which addresses when Section 1983 may be used to enforce Medicaid requirements. The opinion reversed a p...

In this month’s podcast, the trio discusses three new Seventh Circuit decisions. First, Kian takes a deep dive into a fractured en banc decision on an unusual qualified immunity issue. Next, Lara gets philosophical with a case that raises the question of whether an Indian tribe can be a Section 1983 plaintiff — but definitely doesn’t answer it! To round out the program, Mark addresses a decision o...

Kian, Lara and Mark take on a new batch of key Seventh Circuit cases in this month’s podcast. First, the three discuss the Court’s en banc decision in U.S. v. Page , in which the Court changed the standard for proving conspiracy to distribute in drug cases and limited the availability of plain error review for jury instructions. Second, Lara takes on the constitutional limits on punitive damages i...

In this special episode, Mark and Kian welcome a third member to the podcast team – Lara Langeneckert, commercial litigator at Barnes & Thornburg and formerly of the Indiana Solicitor General’s Office and the Southern District of Indiana U.S. Attorney’s Office. The team begins with a labor law extravaganza, discussing three significant cases under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA): Jacks v....

In this special live episode, Mark and Kian are hosted by the Federalist Society chapter of the Indiana University McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis. This episode is an appellate procedure extravaganza, with our hosts managing to cover four separate cases in under an hour – Gilbank v. Wood County Department of Human Services (a split en banc decision on the Rooker-Feldman doctrine), Indiana G...

In this month’s podcast, Kian and Mark address two cases dealing with two completely different but equally complex areas of federal law: securities litigation and Medicaid. In Alcarez v. Akorn , the Court examined the avenues of federal review of so-called “mootness fees” in securities litigation. These fees arise when securities plaintiffs sue over lack of disclosures but the case is rendered moo...

Mark and Kian return to discuss two of the Seventh Circuit's March 2024 opinions. In Garrick v. Moody Bible Institute , a split 2-1 panel (Judge St. Eve writing and joined by Judge Hamilton, with Judge Brennan dissenting) refused to exercise appellate jurisdiction over a district court order rejecting a motion to dismiss that was based on the church autonomy doctrine. Because they do not end...

In this episode, Mark and Kian chat about two opinions the Seventh Circuit issued in February 2024. The first case, Chicago Joe’s Team Room v. Village of Broadview , is a long-running Section 1983 case brought by a would-be adult-entertainment venue against the Chicago suburb that prevented it from opening. In 2008, the district court found the suburb violated the First Amendment, and the parties...

The two cases Mark and Kian discuss in this episode each raise a tricky but important question. The first, Green Plains Trade Group, LLC v. Archer Daniels Midland Co. , addresses how federal courts should discern the content of state law. The landmark Supreme Court case Erie Railroad v. Tompkins says federal courts should try to predict what the state supreme court would do. And in implementing th...

In this month’s very special episode of Seventh Circuit Roundup, hosts Kian Hudson and Mark Crandley interview legendary Seventh Circuit litigator Tom Fisher. Tom recently concluded nearly two decades of service as Indiana’s solicitor general, a role that frequently led Tom to the Seventh Circuit courthouse. Indeed, few if any lawyers have argued more high-profile cases before the Seventh Circuit....

The eighth episode of Seventh Circuit Roundup examines two cases dealing with important federal procedural statutes. First, In Re Venequip reviewed the requirements for a party in a dispute obtaining discovery in federal court under 28 USC 1782(a). In Venequip , the Seventh Circuit examined the requirements for obtaining discovery for an international suit and reviewed the role played by forum sel...

In the seventh episode of Seventh Circuit Roundup, Kian and Mark address cases from very different areas of the law that offer some practical insights for those practicing in the Seventh Circuit. First, Kian discusses Finch v. Treto , which concerns the circumstances when a district court might decline to issue an injunction even in the face of a potential constitutional violation. Finch concerned...

In its sixth episode, Seventh Circuit Roundup covers two August opinions— Bail Project v. Indiana Department of Insurance and St. Augustine School v. Underly .  The first case is a Free Speech Clause challenge to an Indiana law that requires charitable bail organizations to register with the State and limits for whom such organizations can pay cash bail. A divided 2-1 panel of the Seventh Circuit...

The fifth episode of Seventh Circuit Roundup covers two July opinions— Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections and Hess v. Garcia . In Bost , the Democratic Party of Illinois tried to intervene to defend the validity of an Illinois election law, which the Illinois State Board of Elections was already defending. The Seventh Circuit denied intervention: It held that the Party could not show that t...

In the fourth episode of Seventh Circuit Roundup our team covers the religious-discrimination case, Emad v. Dodge County, and the third-party-discovery case, St. Vincent Medical Group v. U.S. Department of Justice . In Dodge County , a Muslim inmate alleged that Wisconsin prison officials violated the Free Exercise Clause and Equal Protection Clause by allowing Christian inmates to engage in certa...

The third episode of Seventh Circuit Roundup covers two significant decisions the Seventh Circuit issued in May — Courtney v. Butler and Bakov v. Consolidated World Travel . In the first case, the Seventh Circuit applied the Supreme Court’s 1994 decision in Heck v. Humphrey — which held that a plaintiff ordinarily cannot bring a Section 1983 constitutional-rights claim if a judgment in his favor “...

The second episode of Seventh Circuit Roundup covers three important Seventh Circuit decisions issued in April – Kluge v. Brownsburg Community School Corp. , Pucillo v. National Credit Systems , and Indiana Right to Life v. Morales . In the first case, a split 2-1 panel rejected a public schoolteacher’s Title VII religious-accommodation claim, which arose after the teacher objected to his school’s...